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WERWOLVES 


1 


WERWOLVES 

;3 


ELLIOTT O’DONNELL 



BOSTON 

SMALL MAYNARD AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 







CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I. WHAT IS A WERWOLF? . . . . i 

II. WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS COMPARED WITH 

OTHER BRANCHES OF LYCANTHROPY . 20 

III. THE SPIRITS OF WERWOLVES . . .44 

IV. HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF . . .55 

V. WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM . . .71 

VI. THE WERWOLF IN THE BRITISH ISLES . . 92 

VII. THE WERWOLF IN FRANCE . . . . I lO 

VIII. WERWOLVES AND VAMPIRES AND GHOULS . 126 

IX. WERWOLVES IN GERMANY . . . . I43 

X. A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK IN THE HARZ 
MOUNTAINS ; OR, THE CASE OF THE COUNTESS 
HILDA VON BREBER . . . . 161 

XI. WERWOLVES IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE 

BALKAN PENINSULA . . . ’174 

XII. THE WERWOLF IN SPAIN . . . . I94 


V 



WERWOLVES 


vi 

CHAP. PAGE 

XIII. THE WERWOLF IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHER¬ 

LANDS ...... 212 

XIV. THE WERWOLVES AND MARAS OF DENMARK . 22 $ 

XV. WERWOLVES IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN . . 236 


XVI. 

WERWOLVES 

FINLAND . 

IN 

ICELAND, 

• • 

LAPLAND, 

AND 

. 256 

XVII. 

THE WERWOLF 

IN 

RUSSIA AND 

SIBERIA . 

. 270 




WERWOLVES 











WERWOLVES 


CHAPTER I 

WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 

W HAT is a werwolf? To this there 
is no one very satisfactory reply. 
There are, indeed, so many diverse 
views held with regard to the nature and classi¬ 
fication of werwolves, their existence is so 
keenly disputed, and the subject is capable of 
being regarded from so many standpoints, that 
any attempt at definition in a restricted sense 
would be well-nigh impossible. 

The word werwolf (or werewolf) is derived 
from the Anglo-Saxon wer^ man, and wulf, 
wolf, and has its equivalents in the German 
Wdhrwolf and French loup-garou, whilst it is 
also to be found in the languages, respectively, 
of Scandinavia, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the 
Balkan Peninsula, and of certain of the coun¬ 
tries of Asia and Africa ; from which it may 


2 


WERWOLVES 


be concluded that its range is pretty well 
universal. 

Indeed, there is scarcely a country in the 
world in which belief in a werwolf, or in some 
other form of lycanthropy, has not once existed, 
though it may have ceased to exist now. But 
whereas in some countries the werwolf is con¬ 
sidered wholly physical, in others it is looked 
upon as partly, if not entirely, superphysical. 
And whilst in some countries it is restricted to 
the male sex, in others it is confined to the 
female ; and, again, in others it is to be met 
with in both sexes. 

Hence, when asked to describe a werwolf, 
or what is generally believed to be a werwolf, 
one can only say that a werwolf is an anomaly 
—sometimes man, sometimes woman (or in the 
guise of man or woman); sometimes adult, 
sometimes child (or in the guise of such)—that, 
under certain conditions, possesses the property 
of metamorphosing into a wolf, the change 
being either temporary or permanent. 

This, perhaps, expresses most of what is 
general concerning werwolves. For more par¬ 
ticular features, upon which I will touch later, 
one must look to locality and time. 

Those who are sceptical with regard to the 
existence of the werwolf, and refuse to accept, 
as proof of such existence, the accumulated 
testimony of centuries, attribute the origin of 


WHAT IS A WEE WOLF? 


3 


the belief in the phenomenon merely to an 
insane delusion, which, by reason of its novelty, 
gained a footing and attracted followers. 

Humanity, they say, has ever been the same ; 
and any fresh idea—no matter how bizarre or 
monstrous, so long as it is monstrous enough— 
has always met with support and won credence. 

In favour of this argument it is pointed out 
that in many of the cases of persons accused of 
werwolfery, tried in France, and elsewhere, in 
the middle of the sixteenth century, when belief 
in this species of lycanthropy was at its zenith, 
j there was an extraordinary readiness among 
I the accused to confess, and even to give cir- 
, cumstantial evidence of their own metamor¬ 
phosis ; and that this particular form of self- 
; accusation at length became so popular among 
' the leading people in the land, that the judicial 
) court, having its suspicions awakened, and, 
: doubtless, fearful of sentencing so many impor- 
^ tant personages, acquitted the majority of the 
; accused, announcing them to be the victims of 
delusion and hysteria. 

'1 Now, if it were admitted, argue these scep¬ 
tics, that the bulk of so-called werwolves were 
t impostors, is it not reasonable to suppose that 
all so-called werwolves were either voluntary 
3i or involuntary impostors ?—the latter, i.e., 
<1 those who were not self-accused, being falsely 
accused by persons whose motive for so doing 






4 


WERWOLVES 


was revenge. For parallel cases one has only 
to refer to the trials for sorcery and witchcraft 
in England. And with regard to false accusa¬ 
tions of lycanthropy—accusations founded en¬ 
tirely on hatred of the accused person—how 
easy it was to trump up testimony and get the 
accused convicted. The witnesses were rarely, 
if ever, subjected to a searching examination ; 
the court was always biased, and a confession 
of guilt, when not voluntary—as in the case of 
the prominent citizen, when it was invariably 
pronounced due to hysteria or delusion—could 
always be obtained by means of torture, though 
a confession thus obtained, needless to say, is 
completely nullified. Moreover, we have no 
record of metamorphosis taking place in court, 
or before witnesses chosen for their imparti¬ 
ality. On the contrary, the alleged transmuta¬ 
tions always occurred in obscure places, and in 
the presence of people who, one has reason to 
believe, were both hysterical and imaginative, 
and therefore predisposed to see wonders. 
So says this order of sceptic, and, to my mind, 
he says a great deal more than his facts justify ; 
for although contemporary writers generally 
are agreed that a large percentage of those 
people who voluntarily confessed they were 
werwolves were mere dissemblers, there is no 
recorded conclusive testimony to show that all 
such self-accused persons were shams and delu- 




WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 


5 


sionaries. Besides, even if such testimony 
were forthcoming, it would in nowise preclude 
the existence of the werwolf. 

Nor does the fact that all the accused 
persons submitted to the rack, or other modes of 
torture, confessed themselves werwolves prove 
that all such confessions were false. 

Granted also that some of the charges of 
lycanthropy were groundless, being based on 
malice—which, by the by, is no argument 
for the non-existence of lycanthropy, since it 
is acknowledged that accusations of all sorts, 
having been based on malice, have been equally 
groundless—there is nothing in the nature of 
written evidence that would justify one in 
assuming that all such charges were traceable 
to the same cause, i.e., a malicious agency. 
Neither can one dismiss the testimony of those 
who swore they were actual eye-witnesses of 
metamorphoses, on the mere assumption that 
all such witnesses were liable to hallucination 
or hysteria, or were hyper-imaginative. 

Testimony to an event having taken place 
must be regarded as positive evidence of such 
an occurrence, until it can be satisfactorily 
proved to be otherwise—and this is where the 
case of the sceptic breaks down ; he can only 
offer assumption, not proof. 

Another view, advanced by those who dis¬ 
credit werwolves, is that belief in the existence 







6 


WERWOLVES 


of such an anomaly originates in the impression ] 
made on man in early times by the great ele- j 
mental powers of nature. It was, they say, j 
man s contemplation of the changes of these | 

great elemental powers of nature, i.e., the j 

changes of the sun and moon, wind, thunder - 
and lightning, of the day and night, sunshine i 
and rain, of the seasons, and of life and death, 
and his deductions therefrom, that led to his j 
belief in and worship of gods that could assume 
varying shapes, such, for example, as India (who | 
occasionally took the form of a bull), Derketo 
(who sometimes metamorphosed into a fish), j 
Poseidon, Jupiter Ammon, Milosh Kobilitch, | 
Minerva, and countless others—and that it is j 
to this particular belief and worship, which is 
to be found in the mythology of every race, 
that all religions, as well as belief in fairies, 
demons, w’erwolves, and phantasms, may be 
traced. 

Well, this might be so, if there were not, 
in my opinion, sufficient accumulative corrobo¬ 
rative evidence to show that not only were 
there such anomalies as werwolves formerly, 
but that, in certain restricted areas, they are 
even yet to be encountered. 

Taking, then, the actual existence of wer¬ 
wolves to be an established fact, it is, of 
course, just as impossible to state their origin f 
as it is to state the origin of any other extra- 



WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 


7 


ordinary form of creation. Every religious 
creed, every Occult sect, advances its own 
respective views—and has a perfect right to 
do so, as long as it advances them as views 
and not dogmatisms. 

I, for my part, bearing in mind that every¬ 
thing appertaining to the creation of man and 
the universe is a profound mystery, cannot 
see the object on the part of religionists and 
scientists in being arbitrary with regard to a 
subject which any child of ten will apprehend 
to be one whereon it is futile to do other than 
theorize. * My own theory, or rather one of 
my own theories, is that the property of trans¬ 
mutation, i.e.y the power of assuming any 
animal guise, was one of the many properties— 
including second sight, the property of be¬ 
coming invisible at will, of divining the 
presence of water, metals, the advent of 
death, and of projecting the etherical body— 
which were bestowed on man at the time 
of his creation ; and that although mankind 
in general is no longer possessed of them, a 
few of these properties are still, in a lesser 
degree, to be found among those of us who 
are termed psychic. # 

The history of the Jews is full of references 
to certain of these properties. The greatest 
of all the Superphysical Forces—the creating 
Force (the Hebrew Jah, Jehovah)—so says the 






8 


WERWOLVES 


Bible, constantly held direct communication 
with His elect—with Adam, Noah, Abraham, 
and Moses, while His emissaries, the angels, 
or what modern Occultists would term Benevo¬ 
lent Elementals, conversed with Abraham, 
Sarah, Jacob, and hosts of others. In this 
same history, too, there is no lack of reference 
to sorcery; and whilst Black Magic is illustrated 
in the tricks wrought by the magicians before 
Pharaoh, and the infliction of all manner of 
plagues upon the Egyptians, one is rather 
inclined to attribute to White Magic Daniel’s 
safety among the lions; Shadrach, Meshach, 
and Abed-nego’s preservation from the flames ; 
Elijah’s miraculous spinning out of the barrel 
of meal and cruse of oil, in the days of famine, 
and his raising of the widow’s son. Also, to 
the account of White Magic—and should any¬ 
one dispute this point let me remind him that 
it is merely a difference in the point of view— 
I would add Elisha’s calling up of the bears 
that made such short work of the naughty 
children who tormented him. There are, too, 
many examples of divination recorded in 
the Bible. In Genesis, chapter xxx., verses 
27-43, ^ description is given of a divining 
rod and its influence over sheep and other 
animals; in Exodus, chapter xvii., verse 15, 
Moses with the aid of a rod discovers water 
in the rock at Rephidim, and for similar 


WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 


9 


instances one has only to refer to Exodus, 
chapter xiv., verse i6, and chapter xvii., verses 
9-11. The calling up of the phantasm of 
Samuel at Endor more than suggests a 
biblical precedent for the modern practice of 
spiritualism ; and it was, undoubtedly, the 
abuse of such power as that possessed by 
the witch of Endor, and the prevalence of 
sorcery, such as she practised, that finally 
led to the decree delivered by Moses to the 
Children of Israel, that on no account were 
they to suffer a witch to live. Reference to 
yet another property of the occult—namely, 
Etherical Projection—which is clearly ex¬ 
emplified in the Scriptures, may be found 
in Numbers, chapter xii., verse 6; in Job, 
chapter xxxiii., verse 15; in the First Book 
of Kings, chapter iii., verse 5 ; in Genesis, 
chapter xx., verses 3 and 6, and chapter 
xxxi., verse 24; in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nahum, 
and Zechariah ; and more particularly in 
the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Reve¬ 
lation of St. John. Lastly, in this history 
of the Jews, which is surely neither more 
nor less authenticated than any other well 
established history, testimony as to the exist¬ 
ence of one species of Elemental of much 
the same order as the werwolf is recorded by 
Isaiah. In chapter xiii., verse 21, we read: 
“ And their houses shall be full of doleful 



10 


WERWOLVES 


creatures, and owls shall dwell there, and 
satyrs shall dance there.” Satyrs ! we repeat; 
are not satyrs every whit as grotesque and 
outrageous as werwolves ? Why, then, should 
those who, regarding the Scriptures as in¬ 
fallible, confess to a belief in the satyr, reject 
the possibility of a werwolf? And for those 
who are more logically sceptical—who question 
the veracity of the Bible and are dubious as to 
its authenticity—there are the chronicles of 
Herodotus, Petronius Arbiter, Baronius, Dole, 
Olaus Magnus, Marie de France, Thomas 
Aquinas, Richard Verstegan, and many other 
recognized historians and classics, covering 
a large area in the history of man, all of 
whom specially testify to the existence 
—in their own respective periods—of wer¬ 
wolves. • 

And if any further evidence of this once 
near relationship with the Other World is 
required, one has only to turn to Aristotle, 
who wrote so voluminously on psychic dreams 
(most of which I am inclined to think were 
due to projection) ; to the teachings of 
Pythagoras and his followers, Empedocles 
and Apollonius ; to Cicero and Tacitus; to 
Virgil, who frequently talks of ghosts and 
seers of Tyana; to Plato, the exponent of 
magic; and to Plutarch, whose works swarm 
with allusions to Occultism of all kinds— 


WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 


11 


phantasms of the dead, satyrs, and numerous 
other species of Elementals. 

I say, then, that in ages past, before any of 
the artificialities appertaining to our present 
mode of living were introduced ; when the 
world was but thinly populated and there were 
vast regions of wild wastes and silent forests, 
the Known and Unknown walked hand in hand. 
It was seclusion of this kind, the seclusion of 
nature, that spirits loved, and it was in this 
seclusion they were always to be found when¬ 
ever man wanted to hold communication with 
them. To such silent spots—to the woods 
and wildernesses—Buddha, Mohammed, the 
Hebrew Patriarchs and Prophets, all, in their 
turn, resorted, to solicit the companionship of 
benevolently disposed spirits, to be tutored 
by them, and, in all probability, to receive from 
them additional powers. To these wastes and 
forests, too, went all those who wished to do ill. 
There they communed with the spirits of dark¬ 
ness, i.e,y demons, or what are also termed Vice 
Elementals; and from the latter they acquired 
—possibly in exchange for some of their own 
vitality, for spirits of this order are said to 
have envied man his material body—tuition in 
sorcery, and such properties as second sight, 
invisibility, and lycanthropy. 

This property of lycanthropy, or metamor¬ 
phosing into a beast, probably dates back to 




12 


WERWOLVES 


mans creation. It was, I am inclined to be¬ 
lieve, conferred on man at his creation by 
Malevolent Forces that were antagonistic to 
man’s progress ; and that these Malevolent 
Forces had a large share in the creation of this 
universe is, to my mind, extremely probable. 
But, however that may be, I cannot believe that 
the creation of man and the universe were due 
entirely to one Creator—there are assuredly too 
many inconsistencies in all we see around us to 
justify belief in only one Creative Force. The 
Creator who inspired man with love—love for 
his fellow beings and love of the beautiful— 
could not be the same Creator who framed 
that irredeemably cruel principle observable 
throughout nature, i.e,, the survival of the fittest; 
the preying of the stronger on the weaker— 
of the tiger on the feebler beasts of the jungle ; 
the eagle on the smaller birds of the air; the 
wolf on the sheep; the shark on the poor, 
defenceless fish, and so on ; neither could He 
be the Creator that deals in diseases—foul and 
filthy diseases, common, not only to all divisions 
of the human species, but to quadrupeds, birds, 
fish, and even flora; that brings into existence 
cripples and idiots, the blind, the deaf and 
dumb; and watches with passive inertness the 
most acute sufferings, not only of adults, but of 
sinless children and all manner of helpless 
animals. No! It is impossible to conceive 


WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 


13 


I that such incompatibilities can be the work of 

: one Creator. But, supposing, for the sake of 

, argument, we may admit the possibility of only 

1 one Creator, we cannot concede that this 

I Creator is at the same time both omnipotent 

? and merciful. My own belief, which is merely 

based on common sense and observation, is 
that this earth was created by many Forces— 

; that everything that makes for man’s welfare is 
! due to Benevolent Forces ; and that everything 
i that tends to his detriment is due to antagon- 
I istic Malevolent Forces ; and that the Male¬ 
volent Forces exist for the very simple reason 
that the Benevolent Forces are not sufficiently 
powerful to destroy them. 

These Malevolent Forces, then—the origin¬ 
ators of all evil—created werwolves ; and the 
I property of lycanthropy becoming in many 
cases hereditary, there were families that could 
look back upon countless generations possessed 
of it. But lycanthropy did not remain in the 
exclusive possession of a few families; the 
bestowal of it continued long after its original 
creation, and I doubt if this bestowal has, even 
now, become entirely a thing of the past. 
There are still a few regions—desolate and 
isolated regions in Europe (in Russia, Scandi¬ 
navia, and even France), to say nothing of Asia, 
Africa and America, Australasia and Polynesia 
—which are unquestionably the haunts of Vag- 




14 


WERWOLVES 


rarians, Barrowvians, and other kinds of 
undesirable Elementals, and it is quite possible 
that, through the agency of these spirits, the 
property of lycanthropy might be acquired 
by those who have learned in solitude how to 
commune with them. 

I have already referred to the werwolf as an 
anomaly, and for its designation I do not think 
I could have chosen a more suitable term. 
Though its movements and actions are physical 
—for what could be more material than the act 
of devouring flesh and blood ?—the actual 
process of the metamorphosis savours of the 
superphysical ; whilst to still further strengthen 
its relationship with the latter, its appearance is 
sometimes half man and half wolf, which is 
certainly more than suggestive of the semi¬ 
human and by no means uncommon type of 
Elemental. Its inconsistency, too, which is a 
striking characteristic of all psychic phenomena, 
is also suggestive of the superphysical ; and 
there is certainly neither consistency as to the 
nature of the metamorphosis—which is some¬ 
times brought about at will and sometimes 
entirely controlled by the hour of day, or by the 
seasons—nor as to the outward form of the 
werwolf, which is sometimes merely that of a 
wolf, and sometimes partly wolf and partly 
human ; nor as to its shape at the moment of 
death, when in some cases there is metamor- 


WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 


15 


phosis, whilst in other cases there is no 
metamorphosis. Nor is this inconsistency only 
characteristic of the movements, actions, and 
shape of the werwolf. It is also characteristic 
of it psychologically. When the metamor¬ 
phosis is involuntary, and is enforced by 
agencies over which the subject has no control, 
the werwolf, though filled with all the passions 
characteristic of a beast of prey, when a wolf, 
is not of necessity cruel and savage when a 
human being, that is to say, before the trans¬ 
mutations take place. There are many 
instances of such werwolves being, as people, 
affectionate and kindly disposed. On the other 
hand, in some cases of involuntary metamor¬ 
phosis, and in the majority of cases of voluntary 
metamorphosis—that is to say, when the trans¬ 
mutation is compassed by means of magic— 
the werwolf, as a person, is evilly disposed, 
and as a wolf shows a distinct blending of 
the beast with the passions, subtle ingenuity, 
and reasoning powers of the human being. 
From this it is obvious, then, that the werwolf 
is a hybrid of the material and immaterial—of 
man and Elemental, known and Unknown. 
The latter term does not, of course, meet with 
acceptance at the hands of the Rationalists, who 
profess to believe that all phenomena can be 
explained by perfectly natural causes. They 
suggest that belief in the werwolf (as indeed in 



16 


WERWOLVES 


all other forms of lycanthropy) is traceable to 
the craving for blood which is innate in certain 
natures and is sometimes accompanied by 
hallucination, the subject genuinely believing 
himself to be a wolf (or whatever beast of prey 
is most common in the district), and, in 
imitation of that animal’s habits, committing 
acts of devastation at night, selecting his victims 
principally from among women and children— 
those, in fact, who are too feeble to resist him. 

Often, however, say these Rationalists, there 
is no suggestion of hallucination, the question 
resolving itself into one of vulgar trickery. 
The anthropophagi, unable to suppress their 
appetite for human food, taking advantage of 
the general awe in which the wolf is held 
by their neighbours, dress themselves up in 
the skins of that beast, and prowling about 
lonely, isolated spots at night, pounce upon 
those people they can most easily overpower. 
Rumours (most probably started by the 
murderers themselves) speedily get in cir¬ 
culation that the mangled and half-eaten 
remains of the villagers are attributable to 
creatures, half human and half wolf, that have 
been seen gliding about certain places after 
dark. The simple country-folk, among whom 
superstitions are rife, are only too ready to 
give credence to such reports ; the existence 
of the monsters becomes an established thing. 


WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 


17 


whilst the localities that harbour them are 
regarded with horror, and looked upon as 
the happy hunting ground of every imaginable 
occult power of evil. 

Now, although such an explanation of wer¬ 
wolves might be applicable in certain districts 
of West Africa, where the native population 
is excessively bloodthirsty and ignorant, it 
could not for one moment be applied to wer- 
wolfery in Germany, France, or Scandinavia, 
where the peasantry are, generally speaking, 
kindly and intelligent people, whom one could 
certainly accuse neither of being sanguinary 
nor of possessing any natural taste for can¬ 
nibalism. 

The rationalist view can therefore only be 
said to be feasible in certain limited spheres, 
outside of which it is grotesque and ridiculous. 

Now a question that has occurred to me, 
and which, I fancy, may give rise to some 
interesting speculation, is, whether some of 
the werwolves stated to have been seen may 
not have been some peculiar type of phantasm. 
I make this suggestion because I have seen 
several sub-human and sub-animal occult 
phenomena in England, and have, too, met 
other people who have had similar ex¬ 
periences. 

With our limited knowledge of the Unknown 
it is, of course, impossible to be arbitrary as 






18 


WERWOLVES 


to the class of spirits to which such phenomena 
belong. They may be Vice Elementals, ix.y 
spirits that have never inhabited any material 
body, whether human or animal, and which 
are wholly inimical to man’s progress—such 
spirits assume an infinite number of shapes, 
agreeable and otherwise ; or they may be 
phantasms of dead human beings—vicious and 
carnal-minded people, idiots, and imbecile 
epileptics. It is an old belief that the souls 
of cataleptic and epileptic people, during the 
body’s unconsciousness, adjourned temporarily 
to animals, and it is therefore only in keeping 
with such a view to suggest that on the 
deaths of such people their spirits take 
permanently the form of animals. This would 
account for the fact that places where catalep- 
tics and idiots have died are often haunted by 
semi and by wholly animal types of phantasms. 

? According to Paracelsus Man has in him 
two spirits—an animal spirit and a human 
spirit—and that in after life he appears in the 
shape of whichever of these two spirits he 
has allowed to dominate him. If, for example, 
he has obeyed the spirit that prompts him 
to be sober and temperate, then his phantasm 
resembles a man ; but on the other hand, if 
he has given way to his carnal and bestial 
cravings, then his phantasm is earthbound, in 
the guise of some terrifying and repellent 


WHAT IS A WERWOLF? 


19 


animal—maybe a wolf, bear, dog, or cat—all 
of which shapes are far from uncommon in 
psychic manifestations. 

This view has been held either in toto, or 
with certain reservations, by many other 
writers on the subject, and I, too, in a great 
measure endorse it—its pronouncement of a 
limit to man’s phantasms being, perhaps, the 
only important point to which I cannot accede. 
My own view is that so complex a creature 
as man—complex both physically and psycho¬ 
logically—may have a representative spirit for 
each of his personalities. Hence on man’s 
physical dissolution there may emanate from 
him a host of phantasms, each with a shape 
most fitting the personality it represents. And 
what more thoroughly representative of cruelty, 
savageness, and treachery than a wolf, or even 
something partly lupine! Therefore, as I 
have suggested elsewhere, in some instances, 
but emphatically not in all, what were thought 
to have been werwolves may only have been 
phantasms of the dead, or Elementals. / 





CHAPTER II 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS COMPARED 
WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF LYCAN- 
THROPY 

HE wolf is not the only animal whose 



shape, it is stated, man may possess 


the power of assuming; and it may be 
of some interest to inquire briefly into the 
varying branches of lycanthropy, comparing 
them with the one already under discussion. 

In Orissa, the power of metamorphosing 
into a tiger is asserted by the Kandhs to be 
hereditary, and also to be acquired through the 
practice of magic ; many who have travelled in 
this country have assured me that there is a 
very great amount of truth in this assertion ; 
and that although there are, without doubt, a 
number of impostors among those designated 
wer-tigers, there are most certainly many who 
are genuine. 

As with the werwolf, so with the wer-tiger, 
the metamorphosis is usually dependent on the 


WEKWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 21 


hour of the day, and generally occurs co- 
temporaneous with the setting of the sun. 

But the lycanthropy of the wer-tiger differs 
from that of the werwolf inasmuch as there is 
a definite god or spirit, in the shape of a tiger, 
that is directly responsible for the bestowal of 
the property. This tiger deity is looked upon 
and worshipped as a totem or national deity— 
that is to say, as a divine being that has the 
welfare of the Kandh nation especially at heart. 
It is communed with at home, but more par¬ 
ticularly in the wild dreariness of the jungle, 
where, on the condition that the prayers of its 
devotees are sufficiently concentrated and in 
earnest, it confers—as an honour and privilege— 
the power of transmutation into its own shape. 
Some idea of its appearance may perhaps be 
gathered from the following description of it 

given me by a Mr. K-, whose name I see 

in the list of passengers reported “missing” in 
the deplorable disaster to the “ Titanic.” 

“Anxious to see,” Mr. K-stated, “if 

there was anything of truth in the alleged 
materialization of the tiger totem to those 
supplicating it, I went one evening to a spot in 
the jungle—some two or three miles from the 
village—where I had been informed the 
manifestations took place. As the jungle was 
universally held to be haunted I met no one; 
and in spite of my dread of the snakes, big 







22 


WERWOLVES 


cats, wild boars, scorpions, and other poisonous 
vermin with which the place was swarming, 
arrived without mishap at the place that had 
been so carefully described to me—a circular 
clearing of about twenty feet in diameter, 
surrounded on all sides by rank grass of a 
prodigious height, trolsee shrubs, kulpa and 
tamarind-trees. Quickly concealing myself, I 
waited the coming of the would-be tiger-man. 

“ He was hardly more than a boy—slim and 
almost feminine—and came gallivanting along 
the narrow path through the brushwood, like 
some careless, high-spirited, brown-skinned 
hoyden. 

“ The moment he reached the edge of the 
mystic circle, however, his behaviour changed; 
the light of laughter died from his eyes, his 
lips straightened, his limbs stiffened, and his 
whole demeanour became one of respect 
and humility. 

“ Advancing with bare head and feet some 
three or so feet into the clearing, he knelt 
down, and, touching the ground three times 
in succession with his forehead, looked up at a 
giant kulpa-tree opposite him, chanting as he 
did so some weird and monotonous refrain, the 
meaning of which was unintelligible to me. 
Up to then it had been light—the sky, like all 
Indian skies at that season, one blaze of moon¬ 
beams and stars ; but now it gradually grew 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 23 


dark. An unnatural, awe-inspiring shade 
seemed to swoop down from the far distant 
mountains and to hush into breathless silence 
everything it touched. Not a bird sang, not 
an insect ticked, not a leaf stirred. One might 
have said all nature slept, had it not been for 
an uncomfortable sensation that the silence 
was but the silence of intense expectation— 
merely the prelude to some unpleasant revela¬ 
tion that was to follow. At this juncture my 
feelings were certainly novel—entirely different 
from any I had hitherto experienced. 

“ I had not believed in the supernatural, and 
had had absolutely no apprehensions of coming 
across anything of a ghostly character—all my 
fears had been of malicious natives and tigers ; 
they now, however, changed, and I was con¬ 
fronted with a dread of what I could not 
understand and could not analyse—of some¬ 
thing that suggested an appearance, alarming 
on account of its very vagueness. 

“ The pulsations of my heart became irregular, 
I grew faint and sick, and painfully susceptible 
to a sensation of excessive coldness, which 
instinct told me was quite independent of any 
actual change in the atmosphere. 

I made several attempts to remove my gaze 
from the kulpa-tree, which intuition told me 
would be the spot where the something, what¬ 
ever it was, that was going to happen would 


24 


WERWOLVES 


manifest itself. My eyes, however, refused to 
obey, and I was obliged to keep them steadily 
fixed on this spot, which grew more and more 
gloomy. All of a sudden the silence was 
broken, and a cry, half human and half animal, 
but horribly ominous, sounding at first faint and 
distant, speedily grew louder and louder. Soon 
I heard footsteps, the footsteps of something 
running towards us and covering the ground 
with hu^e, lig;ht strides. Nearer and nearer it 
came, till, with a sudden spring, it burst into 
view—the giant reeds and trolsees were dashed 
aside, and I saw standing in front of the kulpa- 
tree a vertical column of crimson light of per¬ 
haps seven feet in height and one or so in 
width. A column—only a column, though the 
suggestion conveyed to me by the column was 
nasty—nasty with a nastiness that baffles 
description. I looked at the native, and the 
expression in his eyes and mouth assured me 
he saw more—a very great deal more. For 
some seconds he only gasped ; then, by degrees, 
the rolling of his eyes and twitching of his lips 
ceased. He stretched out a hand and made 
some sign on the ground. Then he produced 
a string of beads, and after placing it over the 
scratchings he had made on the soil, jerked out 
some strange incantation in a voice that thick¬ 
ened and quivered with terror. I then saw a 
stream of red light steal from the base of the 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 25 


column and dart like forked lightning to the 
beads, which instantly shone a luminous red. 
The native now picked them up, and, putting 
them round his neck, clapped the palms of his 
hands vigorously together, uttering as he did 
so a succession of shrill cries, that gradually 
became more and more animal in tone, and 
finally ended in a roar that converted every 
particle of blood in my veins into ice. The 
crimson colour now abruptly vanished—whither 
it went I know not—the shade that had been 
veiling the jungle was dissipated, and in the 
burst of brilliant moonlight that succeeded I 
saw, peering up at me, from the spot where the 
native had lain, the yellow, glittering, malevo¬ 
lent eyes, not of a man, but a tiger—a tiger 
thirsting for human blood. The shock was so 
great that for a second or two I was paralysed, 
and could only stare back at the thing in 
fascinated helplessness. Then a big bird close 
at hand screeched, and some small quadruped 
flew past me terrified ; and with these awaken¬ 
ings of nature all my faculties revived, and I 
simply jumped on my feet and—fled ! 

“Some fifty yards ahead of me, and showing 
their tops well above the moon-kissed reeds 
and bushes, were two trees—a tamarind and 
a kulpa briksha. God knows why I decided on 
the latter! Probably through a mere fluke, for 
I hadn’t the remotest idea which of the trees 



26 


WERWOLVES 


offered the best facilities to a poor climber. 
My mind once made up, there was no time to 
alter. The wer-tiger was already terribly close 
behind. I could gauge its distance by the 
patter of its feet—apparently the metamor¬ 
phosis had only been in part—and by the 
steadily intensifying purr, purr; so unmis¬ 
takably interpretative of the brute’s utter 
satisfaction in its power to overtake me, as 
well as at the prospect of so good a meal. 

I was just thirteen stone, seemingly a most 
unlucky number even in weight! Had the 
tiger wanted, I am sure he could have caught 
me at once, but I fancy it wished to play with 
me a little first—to let me think I was going 
to escape, and then, when it had got all the 
amusement possible out of me, just to give 
a little sprint and haul me over. Perhaps it 
was my anger at such undignified treatment 
of the human race that gave a kind of sting 
to my running, for I certainly got over the 
ground at twice the speed I had ever done 
before, or ever thought myself capable of 
doing. At times my limbs were on the verge 
of mutiny, but I forced them onward, and 
though my lungs seemed bursting, I never 
paused. At last a clearing was reached and 
the kulpa-tree stood fully revealed. I glanced 
at once at the trunk. The lowest branch of 
any size was some eight feet from the ground. 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 


27 


. . . Could I reach it ? Summoning up all my 
efforts for this final, and in all probability fatal, 
rush, I hurled myself forward. There was a 
low exultant roar, a soft, almost feminine purr, 
and a long hairy paw, with black, gleaming 
claws shot past my cheek. I gave a great 
gasp of anguish, and with all the pent-up force 
of despair clutched at the branch overhead. 
My finger-tips just curled over it; I tightened 
them, but, at the most, it was a very feeble, 
puny grasp, and totally insufficient to enable 
me to swing my body out of reach of the 
tiger. I immediately gave myself up as lost, 
and was endeavouring to reconcile myself to 
the idea of being slowly chewed alive, when 
an extraordinary thing happened. The wer- 
tiger gave a low growl of terror and, bounding 
away, was speedily lost in the jungle. Fearing 
it might return, I waited for some time in the 
tree, and then, as there were no signs of it, 
descended, and very cautiously made my way 
back to the village. 

“ That night an entire family, father, mother, 
son, and daughter, were murdered, and their 
mutilated and half-eaten bodies were dis¬ 
covered on the floor of their hut in the 
morning. Evidence pointed to their having 
been killed by a tiger ; and as they had been 
the sworn enemies of the young man whose 
metamorphosis I had witnessed, it was not 


28 


WERWOLVES 


difficult to guess at the identity of their 
destroyer. 

“ I related my adventure to one of the chief 
people, and he informed me he knew that 
particular kulpa-tree well. ‘You undoubtedly 
owe your salvation to having touched it,’ he 
said. ‘ The original kulpa, which now stands 
in the first heaven, is said to have been one of 
the fourteen remarkable things turned up by 
the churning of the ocean by the gods and 
demons ; and the name of Ram and his 
consort Seeter are written on the silvery 
trunks of all its earthly descendants. If once 
you touch any portion of a kulpa briksha tree, 
you are quite safe from any animal—that is 
why the wer-tiger snarled and ran away ! But 
take my advice, sahib, and leave the village.’ 

“ I did so, and on the way to my home in the 
hills visited the tree. There, sure enough, 
plainly visible on the silvery surface in the 
twilight, was the name of the incarnation of 
Vishnu, written in Sanskrit characters, and 
apparently by some supernatural hand; that 
is to say, there was a softness in the im¬ 
pression, as if the finger of some supernatural 
being had traced the characters. I did not 
want any further proofs—I had had enough ; 
and taking good care to see my gun was 
loaded, I hurried off. Nor have I ever 
ventured into that neighbourhood since.” 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 2^j 

Mr. K-, continuing, informed me that 

from what he had been told by his friend in 
the Kandh village, he concluded that only 
those who had been initiated into the full rites 
of magic in their early youth could see the 
totem in its full state of materialization, z.e., 
an enormous tiger—half man and half beast. 
To those who were in some degree clairvoyant 
it would appear as it had appeared to him, 
a mere column of crimson light (crimson on 
account of its association with Black Magic) ; 
whilst to those who were not in any way clair- 
! voyant it would remain entirely invisible. 

; The young Kandh had prayed for the property 
of lycanthropy solely as a means of revenge 
on those whom he imagined had wronged 
him; and as a wer-tiger he was able to 
> destroy them in the most cruel manner 
} possible. The property when once acquired, 

however, could never be cast off, and the 
young man would, willy-nilly, undergo trans¬ 
mutation every night, and in all probability 
continue killing and eating people till some 
one plucked up the courage—for wer-tigers 
were not only dreaded, but held in the greatest 
awe—to shoot him. 

There are certain tribes in India known to 
be adepts in Occultism, and therefore one 
is not surprised to find lycanthropy linked with 
the mysterious jugglery, etherical projection, 





30 


WERWOLVES 


and other psychic feats accomplished by these 
tribesmen. The wer-tiger is not confined to the 
Kandhs : it is met with in Malaysia, in the 
gorgeous tropical forests of Java and Sumatra, 
where it is feared more than anything on 
earth by the gentle and intelligent natives; 
and, if rumour be true, in the great, lone 
mountains and dense jungles, and along the 
hot, unhealthy river-banks of New Guinea. 

In Arawak, it gives place to the wer-jaguar ; 
in Ashangoland, and many parts of West 
Africa, to the wer-leopard. Of course, there 
are cases of charlatanism in lycanthropy as 
in medicine, politics, palmistry, and in every 
other science. But most, if not all, of these 
cases of sham lycanthropy seem to come from 
West Africa, where leopard societies are from 
time to time formed by young savages unable 
to restrain their craving for cannibalism. 
These human vampires dress up in leopard- 
skins, and stealing stealthily through the 
woods at night, attack stray pedestrians or 
isolated households. After killing their vic¬ 
tims, they cut off any portions of the body— 
usually the breasts and thighs—they fancy 
most for eating, and then mutilate the rest 
with the signia of their society, i,e., long and 
deep scratchings, which are made either with 
the claws of a leopard or some other beast, or 
with sharp iron nails. Whole districts are 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 


31 


often put in a state of panic by these 
marauders, who, retiring to their retreat in 
the heart of some little known, vast, and 
almost impenetrable forest, successfully defy 
capture. But the fact of there being pseudo- 
wer-leopards by no means disposes of the 
fact that there are genuine ones, any more 
than the fact that there are charlatan palmists 
precludes the possibility of there being bona 
fide palmists; and I am inclined to believe 
lycanthropy exists in certain parts of West 
Africa (i.e., where primitive conditions are 
most in evidence), although not, perhaps, to 
the same extent as it does in Asia and 
Europe. I do not think the negro’s rela¬ 
tionship to the Occult Forces is quite the 
same as that of other races. He is often 
clairvoyant and clairaudiant, and always very 
much in awe of the superphysical ; but it is 
rarely he can ever claim close intimacy with 
it—not close enough, at all events, to be the 
recipient of its special gifts. 

In werwolfery there is no “totem.” The 
property of metamorphosis, in this branch of 
lycanthropy, is not deemed the gift of a national 
deity, but either of the Occult Powers in general 
or of some particular local phantasm. In other 
branches of lycanthropy, viz., that of the 
wer-tiger and wer-leopard—I am doubtful 
about the wer-jaguar—the property of transmu- 



32 


WERWOLVES 


tation is said to be conferred solely by the god, 
or a god, of the tribe. 

But although these various properties of 
lycanthropy are apparently derived from differ¬ 
ent sources, the difference is only in outward 
form ; and I have no hesitation in saying that 
the occult power from which all lycanthropy 
proceeds, whether in the form of a wolf, tiger? 
leopard, or any other beast, is in reality the 
same species of Elemental.^ But whether a 
Vagrarian, Vice, or some other Elemental, I 
cannot possibly say. 

I have stated that I am doubtful as to 
whether totemism exists in Arawak. The 
truth is, with regard to this question, I am 
in receipt of somewhat conflicting testimony. 
Some say that the natives have as their god a 
deity in the form of a jaguar, to whom they 
pray for vengeance on their foes and for the 
property of lycanthropy ; which property [vide 
the case of the Kandhs) would give them the 
additional pleasure of executing vengeance in 
their own person. On the other hand, I have 
heard that the form of a jaguar is the form most 
commonly assumed by spirits in Arawak, 
particularly by those invoked at stances. 
Hence it is extremely difficult to arrive at 

^ A spirit that has never inhabited any material body. 
Elementals are a genus of a large order, and include 
innumerable species. 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 


33 


the truth. From the corroborating testimony 
of various people, however, I conclude that 
whereas among the Kandhs and West African 
negroes the property of lycanthropy (unless, 
of course, hereditary) is rarely conferred on 
females, or on anyone younger than sixteen, 
in Arawak and Malaysia it is awarded regard¬ 
less of sex or age. 

Some years ago there was current, among 
certain tribes of the natives in Arawak, a story 
to this effect:— 

A Dutch trader, of the name of Van Hielen, 
was visiting for purely business purposes an 
Indian settlement in a very remote part of the 
colony. Roaming about the village one 
evening, he came to a hut standing alone on 
the outskirts of one of those dense forests that 
are so characteristic of Arawak. Van Hielen 
paused, and was marvelling how anyone could 
choose to live in so outlandish and lonely a 
spot, when a shrill scream, followed by a series 
of violent guttural ejaculations, came from the 
interior of the building, and the next moment a 
little boy—some seven or eight years of age— 
rushed out of the house, pursued by a pro¬ 
digiously fat woman, who whacked him soundly 
across the shoulders with a knotted club and 
then halted for want of breath. Van Hielen, 
who was well versed in the native language. 



34 


WERWOLVES 


politely asked her what the boy had done to 
deserve so severe a chastisement. 

“ Done! ” the woman replied, opening her 
beady little eyes to their full extent; “ why, 
he’s not done anything—that’s why I beat him 
—he’s incorrigibly idle. He and his sister 
spend all their time amid the trees yonder 
conversing with the bad spirits. They learned 
that trick from Guska, with the evil eye. She 
has bewitched them. She was shot to death with 
arrows in the market-place last year, and my 
only regret is that she wasn’t put out of the 
way ten years sooner. Ah! there’s that wicked 
girl Yarakna—she’s been hiding from me all 
the day. I must punish her, too 1 ” and before 
Van Hielen could speak the indignant parent 
waddled off—with surprising swiftness for one 
of her vast proportions—and reappeared drag¬ 
ging by the wrist an elfish-looking girl of 
about ten. She gave the urchin one blow, and 
wasabout to give her another, when Van Hielen, 
whose heart was particularly tender where 
children were concerned, interfered, and by dint 
of bribery persuaded her to desist. She retired 
indoors, and Van Hielen found himself alone 
with the child. 

“ May the spirit of th^ woods for ever be 
your friend 1 ” the maiden said. “ But for you 
my poor back would have been beaten to a 
tonka bean. My brother and I have suffered 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 


35 


enough at the hands of the old woman—we’ll 
suffer no more.” 

“ What will you do then ? ” Van Hielen 
asked, shocked at the revengeful expression 
that marred the otherwise pretty features of the 
child. “ Remember, she is your mother, and 
has every right to expect you to be obedient 
and industrious.” 

“ She is not our mother ! ” the girl answered. 
“ Our mother is the spirit of the woods. We 
work for her—not for this old woman, and in 
return she tells us tales and amuses us.” 

“You work for her!” Van Hielen said 
in amazement. “What do you mean.^” 

The child smiled—the ignorance of the white 
man tickled her. “We gather aloes for medi¬ 
cine for her sick children; the core of the 
lechugilla for their food, yucca leaves for 
plumes for their heads, and scarlet panicles 
of the Fouquiera splendens for their clothes. 
My brother and I will go to her to night when 
the old woman is sleeping. Where Ah I 
we do not tell anyone that. Do we see her.^ 
The spirit of the woods, you mean? Yes, we 
see her, but it is not every one who can see 
her—only those who have sight like ours. 
But I must go now—my brother is calling me.” 

Van Hielen could hear nothing; though he 
did not doubt, from the child’s behaviour, that 
she had been called. She ran merrily away, 



36 


WERWOLVES 


and he watched her black head disappear in the 
thick undergrowth facing him. Van Hielen’s 
curiosity was roused. What the child had said 
impressed him deeply ; and against his saner 
judgment he resolved to secrete himself near 
the hut and watch. After it had been dusk 
some time, and all sounds had ceased, he saw 
the two children emerge from the hut, and, 
tiptoeing softly towards the trees, fall on their 
hands and knees and crawl along a tiny, 
deviating path. Hardly knowing what he was 
doing, but impelled by a force he could not 
resist. Van Hielen followed them. It was a 
delicious night—at that time of year every 
night in Arawak is delicious—and Van Hielen, 
who was very simple in his love of nature, 
imbibed delight through every pore in his body. 
As he trod gently along, pushing first this 
branch and then that out of the way, and 
stooping down to half his height to creep under 
a formidable bramble, countless voices from 
animal land fell on his ears. From a glimmer¬ 
ing patch of water, away on his left, came the 
trump of a bull-frog and the wail of the 
whip-poor-will; a monkey chattered, a parrot 
screeched, whilst a shrill cry of terror, accom¬ 
panied by a savage growl, plainly told of the 
surprise and slaughter of some defenceless 
animal by one of the many big beasts of prey 
that made every tree their lurking place. 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 


37 


On any other occasion V^an Hielen would 
have thought twice before embarking on such 
an expedition ; but that night he seemed to 
be labouring under some charm which had 
lulled to sleep all sense of insecurity. It was 
true he was armed, but of what avail is a rifle 
against the unexpected spring of a jaguar or 
leopard—from a bough some ten or twenty 
feet directly over one’s head—or the sudden 
lunge of a boa constrictor! 

At first, the path wound its way through a 
dense chapparal consisting of the various 
shrubs and plants rarely to be met with in 
other parts of Arawak, namely, acacias, aloes, 
lechuguillas, and the Fotiquiera splendens. But 
I after a short time this kind of vegetation was 
succeeded by something far more imposing— 
by dense masses of trees, many of them at 
I the least one hundred and fifty feet in height: 

the mora, which from a distance appears like 
\ a hillock clothed with the brightest vegetation ; 
the ayucari, or red cedar; and the cuamarai 
laden with tonka beans. So thick was their 
foliage overhead that one by one Van Hielen 
watched the stars disappear; and the path 
ahead of him darkened till it was as much as 
he could do to grope along. Still he was not 
afraid. The thought of that elfish little maiden 
with the luminous eyes crawling along in front 
of him inspired him with extraordinary con- 



38 


WERWOLVES 


fidence and he plunged on, anxious only to 
catch another glimpse of her and see the play 
out. Once his progress was interrupted by 
something hot and leathery, that pushed him 
nearly off his feet and puffed rudely in his face. 
It was on the tip of his tongue to give vent 
to his ruffled feelings in forcible language, but 
the knowledge that this would assuredly warn 
the children of his proximity kept him quiet, 
and he contented himself with striking a 
vigorous blow. There was a loud snort, a 
crashing and breaking of brushwood, and the 
thing, whatever it was, rushed away. Another 
time he stumbled over a snake which was 
gliding from one side of the path to the other. 
The creature hissed, and Van Hielen, giving 
himself up for lost, jumped for all he was 
worth. As luck would have it the snake 
missed, and Van Hielen, escaping with nothing 
more serious than a few scratches and a bump 
or two, was able to continue his course. After 
long gropings the path at length came to an 
end, the trees cleared, and Van Hielen saw 
before him a pool, radiantly illuminated by the 
moon, and in the very centre—an immense 
Victoria Regia water-lily. 

Though accustomed to the fine species of 
this plant in Guiana—which is the home of 
the Victoria Regia—Van Hielen was doubtful 
if he had ever before beheld such a magnificent 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 39 


specimen. The silvery moonlight, falling on 
its white and pink petals, threw into relief all 
the exquisite delicacy of their composition, and 
gave to them a glow which could only have 
been rivalled in Elysium. Indeed, the whole 
scene, enhanced by the glamour of the hour 
and the sweet scent of plants and flowers, was 
so reminiscent of fairyland that Van Hielen— 
enraptured beyond description — stood and 
gazed in open-mouthed ecstasy. 

Then his eyes fell on the children and he 
noiselessly slipped back under cover of a tree. 

Hand in hand the boy and girl advanced 
to the water’s edge, and kneeling, commenced 
to recite some strange incantation, which Van 
Hielen tried in vain to interpret. Sometimes 
their voices reached a high, plaintive key; 
sometimes they sank to a low murmur, 
strangely musical, and strangely suggestive 
of the babbling of brook water over stones 
and pebbles. When they had finished their 
incantation, they got up, and running to some 
bushes, returned in a few seconds with their 
arms full of flowers, which they threw with 
great dexterity on to the leaves of the giant 
lily. With their faces still turned to the water 
they remained standing, side by side, whilst 
a silence—deep and impressive, and shared, 
so it appeared to Van Hielen, by all nature— 
fell upon them. 


40 


WERWOLVES 


A cold current of air, rising apparently from 
the pool, blew across the opening, and sweep¬ 
ing past Van Hielen, set all the leaves in 
motion. It rustled on till its echoes gradually 
ceased, and all was still again. It now seemed 
to Van Hielen that the character of everything 
around underwent a subtle change; and the 
feeling that every object around him was 
indulging in a hearty laugh at his expense 
intensified with every breath he drew. For 
the first time Van Hielen was afraid. He 
could not define the cause of his fear—but 
that only made his fear the more acute. He 
was frightened of the wind and darkness, and 
of something more than the wind and dark¬ 
ness — something concealed in — something 
cloaked by the wind and darkness. Even the 
atmosphere had altered—it, too, was making 
game of him. It distorted his vision. The 
things he saw around him were no longer 
stationary—they moved. They twirled and 
twisted themselves into all sorts of grotesque 
and fanciful attitudes ; grew large, then small; 
nearer and then more distant. The plot of 
ground in front of which the children knelt 
played all manner of pranks—pranks Van 
Hielen did not at all like. It moved round 
and round—faster and faster, until it eventually 
became a whirlpool; which suddenly reversed 
and assumed the appearance of a pyramid 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 41 


revolving on its apex. Quicker and quicker 
it spun round—closer and closer it drew ; until, 
without warning, it suddenly stopped and 
disappeared; whilst its place was taken by 
an oddly shaped bulge in the ground, which, 
swaying backward and forward, increased and 
increased in stature, till it attained the height 
of some seven or eight feet. Van Hielen 
could not compare this with anything he had 
ever seen. It was monstrous but shapeless— 
a mere mass of irregular lumps, a dull leadish 
white, and vibrating horribly in the moonlight. 
He thought of the children; but where they 
had stood he saw only two greenish-yellow 
spheres that, twirling round and round, 
suddenly approached him. As he started 
back to escape them, all was again changed. 
The lumpy figure had vanished, the atmosphere 
cleared, and everything was absolutely normal. 
There were now, however, solid grounds for 
fear. Advancing on him with flashing eyes 
and scintillating teeth were two vividly marked 
jaguars—a male and female. Van Hielen, 
usually calm and collected in the face of 
danger, on this occasion lost his presence of 
mind : his gun dropped from his hands, his 
knees quivered, and, helpless and inert, he 
reeled against the tree under which he had 
been standing. The jaguars—which seemed to 
be unusually savage even for jaguars—pre- 




42 


WERWOLVES 


pared to spring, and Van Hielen, certain his 
hour had come, was about to close his eyes 
and resign himself to his fate, when the female 
brute, although the bigger and more formid¬ 
able, hesitated—thrust its dark, handsomely 
spotted head almost in its victim’s face, and 
then, lashing its companion sharply with its 
tail, swerved aside and was off like a dart. 

It took Van Hielen some minutes to realize 
his escape, and then, more in a dream than 
awake, he mechanically shouldered his rifle 
and slowly followed in the beasts’ wake. 

An hour’s walking brought him to the end 
of the forest. The dawn was breaking, and 
the track leading to the settlement was just 
beginning to exhibit the mellowing influence 
of the first rays of the sun. There was an 
exhilarating freshness in the air that made Van 
Hielen keenly sensitive to the ambitious de¬ 
mands of a newly awakened stomach. Opposite 
him was the hut of the old woman, the 
entrance somewhat clumsily blocked with a 
makeshift door. As Van Hielen looked at it 
curiously, wondering if the woman was in the 
habit of barricading it in this fashion on 
account of her proximity to the forest, sounds 
greeted him from within. 

Stepping lightly up to the hut. Van Hielen 
listened attentively. Some big animal—a 
hound most probably—was gnawing a bone— 
crunch, crunch, crunch ! 


WERWOLF METAMORPHOSIS 


43 


Van Hielen moved away, but hadn’t gone 
very far before an indefinable something made 
him turn back. That crunching, was it a dog 

or was it- ? His heart turned sick within 

him at the bare thought. Again he listened at 
the threshold, and again he heard the sounds 
—gnaw, gnaw, gnaw—crunch, crunch, crunch ! 
He rapped at first gently, and then loudly, 
ever so loudly. 

The gnawing at once stopped, but no one 
answered him. Then he called—once, twice, 
thrice: there was no reply. Assured now 
there was something amiss, he gripped his 
rifle, and putting his shoulder to the door, burst 
it open. A flood of daylight rushed in, and he 
saw before him on the floor the mutilated and 
half-eaten remains of a woman, and—did his 
eyes deceive him or did he see ?—crouching in 
a corner all ready to spring, two magnificent 
jaguars. Van Hielen raised his rifle, but—in 
less than a second—it fell from his grasp. 

Towards him, from the same spot—their 
small mouths and slender hands smeared with 
blood—ran Yarakna and her brother. 




CHAPTER III 


THE SPIRITS OF WERWOLVES 

I T seems that there is a disposition in 
certain minds to associate lycanthropy 
with the doctrine of the transmigration 
of souls. A brief examination of the latter 
will, however, suffice to show there is very 
little analogy between the two. 

Transmigration of souls, a metempsychosis, 
deals solely with the passing of the soul after 
death into another mortal form. Lycanthropy 
confines itself to the metamorphosis of physical 
man to animal form only during man’s 
physical lifetime. 

Metempsychosis is a change of condition 
dependent on the principle of evolution 
(i.e. evolution upward and retrogressive). 
Lycanthropy is a change of condition relative 
to a property, entirely independent of evolu¬ 
tion. The one is wholly determined by man’s 
spiritual state at the time of his physical 
dissolution ; the other is simply a faculty of 


THE SPIRITS OF WERWOLVES 45 


sense, either handed down to man by his 
forefathers or acquired by man, during his 
lifetime, through the knowledge and practice 
of magic. 

There are absolutely no grounds, other 
than purely hypothetical ones, for supposing 
a werwolf to be a reincarnation ; but on the 
other hand there is reason to believe that the 
wolf personality of the werwolf, at the latter’s 
physical dissolution, remains earthbound in the 
form of a lupine phantasm. So that although 
there is nothing to associate lycanthropy 
with metempsychosis, there is, at all events, 
something in common between lycanthropy 
and animism. Animism, be it understood, 
holds that every living thing, whether man, 
beast, reptile, insect, or vegetable, has a 
representative spirit. 

As an example of a lupine phantasm repre¬ 
senting the personality of the werwolf, I 
will quote a case, reported to me some years 
ago as having occurred in Estonia, on the 
shores of the Baltic. A gentleman and his 
sister, whom I will call Stanislaus and Anno 
D’Adhemar, were invited to spend a few 
weeks with their old friends, the Baron and 

Baroness Von A-, at their country home 

in Estonia. On the day arranged, they set 
out for their friends’ house, and alighting at 
a little station, within twenty miles of their 




46 


WERWOLVES 


destination, were met by the Barons droshky. 
It was one of those exquisite evenings—a night 
light without moon, a day shady without clouds 
—peculiar to that clime. Indeed, it seemed as 
if the last glow of the evening and the first 
grey of the morning had melted together, and 
as if all the luminaries of the sky merely rested 
their beams without withdrawing them. To 
Stanislaus and Anno, jaded with the wear and 
tear of life in a big city, the calm and quiet of 
the country-side was most refreshing, and they 
heaved great sighs of contentment as they 
leaned far back amid the luxurious upholstery 
of the carriage, and drew in deep breaths of 
the smokeless, pure, scented air. Their sur¬ 
roundings modelled their thoughts. Instead 
of discussing monetary matters, which had so 
long been uppermost in their minds, they dis¬ 
coursed on the wonderful economy of happiness 
in a world full of toil and struggle ; the fewer 
the joys, they argued, the higher the enjoyment, 
till the last and highest joy of all, true peace of 
mind, i.e,, content, was the one joy found to con¬ 
tain every other joy. Occasionally they paused 
to remark on the brilliant lustre of the stars, 
and, not infrequently, alluded to the Creator’s 
graciousness in allowing them to behold such 
beauty. Occasionally, too, they would breaj^ 
off in the midst of their conversation to listen 
to the plaintive utterings of some night bird or 



THE SPIRITS OF WERWOLVES 47 


the shrill cry of a startled hare. The rate at 
which they were progressing—for the horses 
were young and fresh—speedily brought them 
to an end of the open country, and they found 
themselves suddenly immersed in the deepening 
gloom of a dense and extensive forest of pines. 
The track now was not quite so smooth ; here 
and there were big ruts, and Stanislaus and his 
sister were subjected to such a vigorous bump¬ 
ing that they had to hold on to the sides of the 
droshky, and to one another. In the altered 
conditions of their travel, conversation was well- 
nigh impossible. The little they attempted 
was unceremoniously jerked out of them, and 
the nature of it—I am loath to admit—had 
V somewhat deteriorated. It had, in fact, in 
1 accordance with their surroundings, undergone 
j a considerable change. 

I “What a vile road!” Stanislaus exclaimed, 
i clutching the side of the droshky with both 
I hands to save himself from being precipitated 
i into space. 

“Yes — isn’t—it.^” gasped Anno, as she 
I lunged forward, and in a vain attempt to 
i regain her seat fell on their handbag, which 
I gave an ominous squish. “ I declare there— 
^ there—will be—nothing left of me—by the— 

by the time we get there. Oh dear I What¬ 
ever shall I do ? Wherever have you got to, 
Stanislaus ? ” 





48 


WERWOLVES 


The upper half of Stanislaus was nowhere 
to be seen ! His lower half, however, was 
discovered by his sister convulsively pressed 
against the side of the droshky. In another 
moment this, too, would undoubtedly have 
disappeared, and the lower extremities would 
have gone in pursuit of the upper, had 
not Anno with admirable presence of mind 
effected a rescue. She tugged at her brother’s 
coat-tails in the very nick of time, with the 
result that his whole body once again hove 
into view. 

Just then a bird sang its final song before 
retiring for the night, and Stanislaus, hot and 
trembling all over, shouted out: “ What a 

hideous noise! I declare it quite frightened 
me; whilst Anno shuddered and put her 
fingers in her ears. They once more abused 
the road; then the trees. “ Great ugly things,” 
they said ; “they shut out all the light.” And 
then they abused the driver for not looking out 
where he was going, and finally they began to 
abuse one another. Anno abused Stanislaus, 
because he had disarranged her hat and hair, 
and Stanislaus, Anno, because he couldn’t hear 
all she said, and because what he did hear was 
silly. Then the Stygian darkness of the great 
pines grew ; and the silence of wonder fell on 
the two quarrellers. On, on, on rolled the 
droshky, a monotonous rumble, rumble, that 


THE SPIRTS OF WERWOLVES 49 


sounded very loud amid the intense hush that 
had suddenly fallen on the forest. Stanislaus 
and Anno grew drowsy ; the cold night air, 
crowning their exertions of the day, induced 
sleep, and they were soon very much in the 
land of nods : Stanislaus with his head thrust 
back as far as it would go, and Anno with her 
head leaning slightly forward and her chin 
deeply rooted in the silvery recesses of her 
rich fur coat. 

The driver stopped for a moment. He had 
to attend to his lights, which, he reflected, were 
behaving in rather an odd manner. Then, 
scratching his head thoughtfully, he cracked 
his whip and drove hurriedly on. Once again, 
rumble, rumble, rumble; and no other sounds 
but far away echoes and the gentle cooing of 
a soft night breeze through the forked and 
ragged branches of the sad and stately pines. 
On, on, on, the light uncertain and the horses 
brisk. Suddenly the driver hears something— 
he strains his ears to catch the meaning of the 
sounds—a peculiar, quick patter, patter—coming 
from far away in the droshky’s wake. There is 
something—he can’t exactly tell what—in those 
sounus he doesn’t like ; they are human, and 
yet not human; they may proceed from some 
one running—some one tall and lithe, with 
an unusually long stride. They may—and he 
casts a shuddering look over his shoulder as 


50 


WERWOLVES 


the thought strikes him—-they may be nothing 
human—they may be the patter of a wolf! A 
huge, gaunt, hungry wolf! an abnormally big 
wolf 1 a wolf with a gallop like that of a horse I 
The driver was new to these parts ; he had but 
lately come from the Baron’s establishment in 
St. Petersburg. He had never been in this 
wood after dark, and he had never seen a wolf 
save in the Zoological Gardens. The atmo¬ 
sphere now began to sharpen. From being 
merely cold it became positively icy, and mutter¬ 
ing, “ I never felt anything like this in St. 
Petersburg,” the driver shrank into the depths 
of his furs, and tried to settle himself more 
comfortably in his seat. The horses, too, four 
in number, were strangers in Estonia, the Baron 
having only recently paid a heavy price for 
them in Nava on account of their beauty. Not 
that they were merely handsome ; despite their 
small and graceful build, and the glossy sleek¬ 
ness of their coats, they were both strong and 
spirited, and could cover twenty-five versts 
without a pause. But now they, too, heard the 
sounds—there was no doubt of that—and felt 
the cold. At first they shivered, then whined, 
and then came to an abrupt halt; and then, 
without the slightest warning, tore the shifting 
tag and rag tight around them, and bounding 
forward, were off like the wind. Then, away 
in their rear, and plainly audible above the 


THE SPIRITS OF WERWOLVES 51 


thunder of their hoofs, came a moaning, snarl¬ 
ing, drawn-out cry, which was almost instantly 
repeated, not once, but again and again. 

Stanislaus and Anno, who had been rudely 
awakened from their slumbers by the unusual 
behaviour of the horses, were now on the 
' qui vive, 

“ Good heavens ! What’s that ? ” they cried 
in chorus. 

“What’s that, coachman ” shrieked Anno, 
digging the shivering driver in the back, 
i “ Volki, mistress, volki! ” was the reply, and 
on flew the droshky faster, faster, faster! 

To Stanislaus and Anno the word “ wolves ” 
came as a stunning shock. All the tales they 
had ever heard of these ferocious beasts crowded 
their minds at once. Wolves ! was it possible 
that those dreadful bogies of their childhood— 

^ those grim and awful creatures, grotesquely but 
none the less vividly portrayed in their imagi¬ 
nation by horror-loving nurses—were actually 
close at hand! Supposing the brutes caught 
them, who would be eaten first Anno, Stanis- 
I laus, or the driver? Would they devour them 
with their clothes on ? If not, how would they 
get them off.^ Then, filled with morbid 
curiosity, they strained their ears and listened. 
Again—this time nearer, much nearer—came 
k! that cry, dismal, protracted, nerve-racking. 
Nor was that all, for they could now discern 





52 


WERWOLVES 


the pat-pat, pat-pat of footsteps—long, soft, 
loping footsteps, as of huge furry paws or 
naked human feet. However, they could see 
nothing—nothing but blackness, intensified by 
the feeble flickering of the droshky’s lanterns. 

“Faster! drive faster!” Anno shouted, 
turning round and poking the coachman in the 
ribs with her umbrella. “ Do you want us all 
to be eaten ? ” 

“I can’t mistress, I can’t!” the man expostu¬ 
lated ; “ the horses are outstripping the wind 
as it is. They can’t go quicker.” And the 
driver, consigning Stanislaus and his sister 
to the innermost recesses of hell, prayed to 
the Virgin to save him. 

Nearer and nearer drew the steps, and again 
a cry—a cry close behind them, perhaps fifty 
yards—fifty yards at the most. And as they 
were trying to locate it there burst into view 
a gigantic figure—nude and luminous, a figure 
that glowed like a glow-worm and bent slightly 
forward as it ran. It covered the ground with 
long, easy, swinging strides, without any ap¬ 
parent effort. In general form its body was 
like that of a man, saving that the limbs were 
longer and covered with short hair, and the 
feet and hands, besides being larger as a whole, 
had longer toes and fingers. Its head was 
partly human, partly lupine—the skull, ears, 
teeth, and eyes were those of a wolf, whilst the 


THE SPIRITS OF WERWOLVES 53 


remaining features were those of a man. Its com¬ 
plexion was devoid of colour, startlingly white ; 
its eyes green and lurid, its expression hellish. 

Stanislaus and Anno did not know what to 
make of it. Was it some terrible monstrosity 
that had escaped from a show, or something 
that was peculiar to the forest itself, something 
generated by the giant trees and dark, silent 
road.^ In their sublime terror they shrieked 
aloud, beat the air with their hands to ward it 
off, and finally left their seats to cling on to the 
back of the driver s box. 

But it came nearer, nearer, and nearer, until 
they were almost within reach of its arms. 
They read death in the glinting greenness of 
its eyes and in the flashing of its long bared 
teeth. The climax of their agony, they argued, 
could no longer be postponed. The thing had 
only to make a grab at them and they would 
die of horror—die even before it touched them. 
But this was not to be. 

They were still staring into the pale malevo¬ 
lent face drawing nearer and nearer, and 
wondering when the long twitching fingers 
would catch them by the throats, when the 
droshky with a mad swirl forward cleared the 
forest, and they found themselves gazing wildly 
into empty moonlit space, with no sign of 
their pursuer anywhere. 

An hour later they narrated their adventure 



54 


WERWOLVES 


to the Baron. Nothing could have exceeded 
his distress. “ My dear friends ! ” he said, 
“ I owe you a profound apology. I ought 
to have told my man to choose any other road 
rather than that through the forest, which is 
well known to be haunted. According to 
rumour, a werwolf—we have good reason to 
believe in werwolfs here — was killed there 
many years ago.” 


CHAPTER IV 


HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 
S I have already stated, in some people 



lycanthropy is hereditary ; and when 


^it is not hereditary it may be acquired 
through the performance of certain of the rites 
ordained by Black Magic. For the present I 
can only deal with the more general features of 
these rites (which vary according to locality) 
and the conditions of mind essential to those 
who would successfully practise these rites. In 
the first place, it is necessary that the person 
desirous of acquiring the property of lycan¬ 
thropy should be in earnest and a believer in 
those superphysical powers whose favour he is 
about to ask. 

Assuming we have such an individual he 
must, first of all, betake himself to a spot 
remote from the haunts of men. The powers 
to be petitioned are not to be found promiscu¬ 
ously—anywhere. They favour only such 
waste and solitary places as the deserts, 
woods, and mountain-tops. 


55 



56 


WERWOLVES 


The locality chosen, our candidate must 
next select a night when the moon is new and 
strong.I He must then choose a perfectly 
level piece of ground, and on it, at midnight, 
he must mark, either with chalk or string—it 
really does not matter which—a circle of not 
less than seven feet in radius, and within this, 
and from the same centre, another circle of 
three feet in radius. Then, in the centre of 
this inner circle he must kindle a fire, and over 
the fire place an iron tripod containing an iron 
vessel of water. As soon as the water begins to 
boil the would-be lycanthropist must throw into 
it handfuls of any three of the following sub¬ 
stances : Asafoetida, parsley, opium, hemlock, 
henbane, saffron, aloe, poppy-seed and sola- 
num ; repeating as he does so these words :— 

“Spirits from the deep 
Who never sleep. 

Be kind to me. 

“Spirits from the grave 
Without a soul to save. 

Be kind to me. 

“Spirits of the trees 
That grow upon the leas, 

Be kind to me. 

^ Psychic influences are demonstrated by the position of 
the planets. For instance, at a new moon, cusp of Seventh 
House, and cojoined with Saturn in opposition to Jupiter, 
sinister superphysical presences are much in evidence on 
the earth. 


HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 57 


“Spirits of the air, 

Foul and black, not fair. 

Be kind to me. 

“Water spirits hateful. 

To ships and bathers fateful. 

Be kind to me. 

“Spirits of earthbound dead 
That glide with noiseless tread. 

Be kind to me. 

“Spirits of heat and fire. 

Destructive in your ire, 

Be kind to me. 

“Spirits of cold and ice. 

Patrons of crime and vice. 

Be kind to me. 

“ Wolves, vampires, satyrs, ghosts ! 

Elect of all the devilish hosts ! 

I pray you send hither, 

Send hither, send hither, 

The great grey shape that makes 
men shiver! 

Shiver, shiver, shiver ! 

Come ! Come ! Come ! ” 

The supplicant then takes off his vest and 
shirt and smears his body with the fat of some 
newly killed animal (preferably a cat), mixed 
with aniseed, camphor, and opium. Then he 
binds round his loins a girdle made of wolfs- 
skin, and kneeling down within the circumfer¬ 
ence of the first circle, waits for the advent of 


58 


WERWOLVES 


the Unknown. When the fire burns blue and 
quickly dies out, the Unknown is about to 
manifest itself; if it does not then actually 
appear it will make its presence felt. 

There is little consistency in the various 
methods of the spirit s advent : sometimes a 
deep unnatural silence immediately precedes it; 
sometimes crashes and bangs, groanings and 
shriekings, herald its approach. When it 
remains invisible its presence is indicated and 
accompanied by a sensation of abnormal cold 
and the most acute terror. It is sometimes 
visible in the guise of a huntsman—which is, 
perhaps, its most popular shape—sometimes in 
the form of a monstrosity, partly man and partly 
beast—and sometimes it is seen ill defined and 
only partially materialized. To what order of 
spirits it belongs is, of course, purely a matter of 
conjecture. I believe it to be some malevolent, 
superphysical, creative power, such as, in my 
opinion, participated largely in the creation of 
this and other planets. I do not believe it to 
be the Devil, because I do not believe in the 
existence of only one devil, but in countless 
devils. It is difficult to say to what extent the 
Unknown is believed to be powerful by those 
who approach it for the purpose of acquiring 
the gift of lycanthropy; but I am inclined to 
think that the majority of these, at all events, 
do not ascribe to it any supreme power, but 


HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 59 


regard it merely as a local spirit—the spirit of 
some particular wilderness or forest. 

Of course, it is quite possible that the pro¬ 
perty of werwolfery might be acquired by other 
than a direct personal communication with the 
Unknown, as, for example, by eating a wolf’s 
brains, by drinking water out of a wolfs foot¬ 
prints, or by drinking out of a stream from 
which three or more wolves have been seen to 
drink; but as most of the stories I have heard 
of werwolfery acquired in this way are of a 
wild and improbable nature, I think there is 
little to be learned from the modus operandi 
they advocate. The following story, which I 
believe to be true in the main, was told 
me by a Dr. Broniervski, whom I met in 
Boulogne. 

“ Ten years ago,” my informant began, “I 
was engaged in a geological expedition in 
Montenegro. I left Cetinge in company with 
my escort, Dugald Dalghetty, a Dalmatian who 
had served me on many former occasions; but 
owing to an accident I was compelled to leave 
him behind at a village about thirty miles east 
of the capital. As it was absolutely necessary 
for me to have a guide, I chose a Montenegrin 
called Kniaz. Dalghetty warned me against 
him. ‘ Kniaz has the evil eye,’ he said ; ‘ he 
will bring misfortune on you. Choose some 
one else.’ 


60 


WERWOLVES 


“ Kniaz was certainly not particularly pre¬ 
possessing. He was tall and angular, and 
pock-marked and sandy-haired; and his eyes 
had a peculiar cast—only a cast, of course, 
nothing more. To balance these detractions 
he was civil in his manners and extremely 
moderate in his terms. Dalghetty, faithful 
fellow, almost wept as he watched us depart. 

‘ I shall never see you again,’ he said. 

‘ Never ! ’ 

“ Just outside the last cottage in the village 
we passed a gigantic, broad-shouldered man, 
clad in the usual clothes of frieze, a black skull¬ 
cap, wide trousers, and tights from the knee 
to the ankle. Over his shoulders was a new 
white strookah, of which he seemed very 
proud ; whilst he had a perfect armament of 
weapons—rifles, pistols, yatagan—polished up 
to the knocker—and cartouche-box. He was 
conversing with a girl at one of the windows, 
but turned as we came up to him and leered 
impudently at Kniaz. The sallow in Kniaz’s 
cheeks turned to white, and the cast in his eyes 
became ten times more pronounced. But he 
said nothing—only drooped hishead and shuffled 
a little closer to me. 

“For the rest of the day he spoke little ; and 
I could tell from his expression and general air 
of dejection that he was still brooding over the 
incident. The following morning—we stayed 


HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 61 


^ the night in a wayside inn—Kniaz informed me 
j that the route we had intended taking to Skara- 
[ voski—the town I meant to make the head 
quarters for my daily excursions—was blocked 
(a blood feud had suddenly been declared 
between two tribes), and that consequently we 
\ should have to go by some other way. I 
inquired who had told him and whether he was 
sure the information was correct. He replied 
that our host had given him the warning, and 
that the possibility of such an occurrence had 
^ been suggested to him before leaving Cetinge. 
‘But,’ he added, ‘there is no need to worry, for 
the other road, though somewhat wild and 
rough, is, in reality, quite as safe, and certainly 
a good league and a half shorter.’ As it made 
no very great difference to me which way I 
‘ went, I acquiesced. There was no reason to 
f suspect Kniaz of any sinister motive—cases of 
: treachery on the part of escorts are practically 
unknown in Montenegro—and if it were true 
that some of the tribes were engaged in a ven¬ 
detta, then I certainly agreed that we could not 
» give them too wide a berth. At the same time 
I could not help observing a strange innovation 
in Kniaz’s character. Besides the sullenness 
that had laid hold of him since his encounter 
with the man and girl, he now exhibited a rest¬ 
less eagerness—his eyes were never still, his 
, lips constantly moved, and I could frequently 




62 


WERWOLVES 


hear him muttering to himself as we trudged 
along. He asked me several times if I believed 
in the supernatural, and when I laughingly 
replied ‘No, I am far too practical and level¬ 
headed,’ he said ‘ Wait. We are now in the land 
of spirits. You will soon change your opinion.’ 

“The country we were traversing was cer¬ 
tainly forbidding—forbidding enough to be the 
hunting ground of legions of ferocious animals. 
But the supernatural ! Bah! I flouted such an 
idea. All day we journeyed along a lofty 
ridge, from which, shortly before dusk, it became 
necessary to descend by a narrow and precipi¬ 
tous declivity, full of danger and difficulty. At 
the bottom we halted three or four hours, to 
wait for the moon, in a position sufficiently 
romantic and uncomfortable. A north-east 
wind, cold and biting, came whistling over the 
hills, and seemed to be sucked down into the 
hollow where we sat on the chilly stones. 
The moment we sighted the slightly depressed 
orb of the moon over the vast hill of rocks, and 
the Milky Way spanning the heavens with a 
brilliancy seen only in the East, we pushed on 
again. On, along a painfully rough and uneven 
track, flanked on either side by perpendicular 
masses of rock that reared themselves, black 
and frowning, like some huge ruined wall. On, 
till we eventually came to the end of the defile. 
Then an extraordinary scene burst upon us. 


HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 63 


“Whilst the irregular line of rocks continued 
close on our left, beyond it—glittering in the 
miraculously magnifying moonlight with more 
gigantic proportions than nature had afforded— 
was a huge pile of white rocks, looking like the 
fortifications of some vast fabulous city. There 
were yawning gateways flanked by bastions of 
great altitude ; towers and pyramids ; crescents 
and domes ; and dizzy pinnacles ; and castellated 
heights ; all invested with the unearthly gran¬ 
deur of the moon, yet showing in their wide 
breaches and indescribable ruin sure proofs 
that during a long course of ages they had been 
battered and undermined by rain, hurricane, 
and lightning, and all the mighty artillery of 
time. Piled on one another, and repeated over 
and over again, these strangely contorted rocks 
stretched as far as the eye could reach, sinking, 
however, as they receded, and leading the mind, 
though not the eye, down to the plain below, 
through which a turbid stream wound its way 
rebelliously, like some great twisting, twirling, 
silvery-scaled serpent. 

“It was into this gorge that Kniaz in a voice 
thrilling with excitement informed me we must 
plunge. 

“ ‘ It is called,’ he explained to me, ‘ the 
haunted valley, and it is said to have been from 
time immemorial under the spell of the grey 
spirits—a species of phantasm, half man and 


64 


WERWOLVES 


half animal, that have the power of metamor¬ 
phosing men into wild beasts.’ Horses, he 
went on to inform me, showed the greatest 
reluctance to enter the valley, which was a sure 
proof that the place was in very truth phantom- 
ridden. I must say its appearance favoured 
that theory. The path by which we descended 
was almost perpendicular, and filled with 
shadows. Precipices hemmed us in on every 
side; and here and there a huge fragment of 
rock, standing like a petrified giant, its summit 
gleaming white in the moonbeams, barred 
our way. 

“ On reaching the bottom we found our¬ 
selves exactly opposite the pile of white rocks, 
at the base of which roared the stream. Kniaz 
now declared that our best plan was to halt 
and bivouac here for the night. I expostulated, 
saying that I did not feel in the least degree 
tired, that the spot was far from comfortable, 
and that I preferred to push on. Kniaz then 
pleaded that he was too exhausted to proceed, 
and, in fact, whined to such an extent that in 
the end I gave way, and lying down under 
cover of a boulder, tried to imagine myself in 
bed. I did actually fall asleep, and awoke 
with the sensation of something crawling over 
my face. Sitting up, I looked around for 
Kniaz—he was nowhere to be seen. The 
oddness of his behaviour, his alternate talka- 


HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 65 


tiveness and sullenness, and the anxiety he had 
manifested to come by this route, made me at 
last suspicious. Had he any ulterior motive 
in leading me hither What had become of 
him.^ Where was he? I got up and ap¬ 
proached the margin of the stream, and then 
for the first time I felt frightened. The illimit¬ 
able possibilities of that enormous mass of 
castellated rocks towering above me both 
quelled and fascinated me. Were these flicker¬ 
ing shadows shadows, or—or had Kniaz, after 
all, spoken the truth when he said this valley 
was haunted ? The moonlight rendered every 
object I looked upon so startlingly vivid, that 
not even the most trivial detail escaped my 
notice, and the more I scrutinized the more 
firmly the conviction grew on me that I was 
in a neighbourhood differing essentially from 
any spot I had hitherto visited. I saw nothing 
with which I had been formerly conversant. 
The few trees at hand resembled no growth of 
either the torrid, temperate, or northern frigid 
zones, and were altogether unlike those of the 
southern latitudes with which I was most fami¬ 
liar. The very rocks were novel in their mass, 
their colour, and their stratification ; and the 
stream itself, utterly incredible as it may appear, 
had so little in common with the streams of other 
countries that I shrank away from it in alarm. 

I am at a loss to give any distinct idea of the 


66 


WERWOLVES 


nature of the water. I can only say it was not 
like ordinary water, either in appearance or 
behaviour. Even in the moonlight it was not 
colourless, nor was it of any one colour, pre¬ 
senting to the eye every variety of green and 
blue. Although it fell over stones and rocks 
with the same rapid descent as ordinary water, 
it made no sound, neither splash nor gurgle. 
Summoning up courage, I dipped my fingers in 
the stream ; it was quite cold and limpid. The 
difference did not lie there. I was still puzzling 
over this phenomenon, still debating in my 
mind the possibility of the valley being haunted, 
when I heard a cry—apeculiarly ominous cry— 
human and yet animal. For a few seconds I was 
too overcome with fear to move. At last, how¬ 
ever, having in some measure pulled myself 
together, I ventured cautiously in the direction 
of the noise, and after treading as lightly as I 
could over the rough and rocky soil for some 
couple of hundred yards, suddenly came to an 
abrupt standstill. 

“ Kneeling beside the stream with its back 
turned to me was an extraordinary figure—a 
thing with a man’s body and an animal’s 
head—a dark, shaggy head with unmistakable 
prick ears. I gazed at it aghast. What was it ? 
What was it doing ? As I stared it bent down, 
lapped the water, and raising its head, uttered 
the same harrowing sound that had brought 


HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 67 


me thither. I then saw, with a fresh start of 
wonder, that its hands, which shone very white 
in the moonlight, were undergoing a gradual 
metamorphosis. I watched carefully, and first 
one finger, and then another, became amal¬ 
gamated in a long, furry paw, armed with 
sharp, formidable talons. 

“ I suppose that in my fear and astonish- 
> ment I made some sound of sufficient maofni- 
I tude to attract attention ; anyhow, the creature 
at once swung round, and, with a snarl of 
rage, rushed savagely at me. Being unarmed, 
and also, I confess, unnerved, I completely 
, lost my presence of mind, and not attempting 
to escape—though flight would have been 
futile, for I was nothing of a runner—shrieked 
aloud for help. The thing sprang at me, its 
jaws wide open, its eyes red with rage. I 
struck at it wildly, and have dim recollections 
of my puny blows landing on its face. It 
closed in on me, and gripping me tightly 
round the body with its sinewy arms, hurled 
me to the ground. My head came in violent 
contact with a stone, and I lost consciousness. 
On recovering my senses, I was immeasurably 
r surprised to find Dalghetty sitting on a rock 
watching me, whilst close beside him was 
Kniaz, bloodstained and motionless. 

“ Dalghetty explained the situation. ‘ Con¬ 
vinced that evil would befall you in the com- 




68 


WERWOLVES 


pany of such a man,’ he said, pointing to the 
figure at his feet, ‘ I determined to set out in 
pursuit of you. By a miracle, which I attribute 
to Our Lady, the effects of my accident sud¬ 
denly wore off, and I felt absolutely well. I 
borrowed a horse, and, starting from Cetinge 
at nine this morning, reached the inn where 
you passed last night at eleven. There I 
learned the route you had taken, and leaving 
the horse behind—on such a road I was safer 
on my legs—I pressed on. The ground, being 
moist in places, revealed your footprints, and 
I had no difficulty at all in tracing you to the 
bottom of the declivity. There I was at sea 
for some moments, since the rocky soil was too 
hard to receive any impressions. But hearing 
the howl of some wild animal, I concluded you 
were attacked, and, guided by the sound, I 
arrived here to find a werwolf actually pre¬ 
paring to devour you. A bullet from my rifle 
speedily rendered the creature harmless, and 
a close inspection of it proved that my sur¬ 
mises were only too correct. It was none 
other than our friend here with the evil eye— 
Kniaz ! ’ 

“ ‘ Kniaz a werwolf! ’ I ejaculated. 

“‘Yes! he inveigled you here because he 
had made up his mind to drink the water of 
the enchanted stream, and so become meta¬ 
morphosed from a man to a wild beast. His 


HOW TO BECOME A WERWOLF 69 


object in doing so was to destroy a young 
farmer who had stolen his sweetheart, and for 
whom he, as a man, was no match. However, 
he is harmless now, but it is a warning to 
you in future to trust no one who has the 
evil eye.’ ” 

Belief in the evil eye is everywhere prevalent 
in the East, and it is undoubtedly true that 
people who have certain peculiarities in their 
eyes, both with regard to expression, colour, and 
formation, are people to be avoided. If male¬ 
volently inclined, they invariably bring ill-luck 
on all who become acquainted with them. I 
have followed the careers of several people in 
whom I have noticed this baneful feature, and 
their histories have been one long tale of sin 
or sorrow—often both. 

But though the evil eye denotes an evil 
superphysical influence, the werwolf is not 
necessarily possessed of it. Sometimes a 
werwolf may be told by the long, straight, 
slanting eyebrows, which meet in an angle 
over the nose ; sometimes by the hands, the 
third finger of which is a trifle the longest; 
or by the finger-nails, which are red, almond- 
shaped, and curved ; sometimes by the ears, 
which are set rather low, and far back on their 
heads ; and sometimes by a noticeably long, 
swinging stride, which is strongly suggestive 
of some animal. Either one or other of these 


70 


WERWOLVES 


features is always present in hereditary wer¬ 
wolves, and is also frequently developed in 
those people who become werwolves, either 
at the same time as or soon after they acquire 
the property. 


CHAPTER V 

WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 

I N the preceding chapter I touched on 
one or two modes of evoking the spirits 
that have it in their power to confer the 
property of lycanthropy; I now pass on to the 
question of exorcism in relation to werwolves. 

Is it possible to exorcize the evil power of 
metamorphosis possessed by the werwolf, or, 
as those would say who see in the werwolf, 
not the possession of a property, but a spirit, 
“to exorcize the evil spirit”? 

For my own part, and basing my opinion 
on my own experiences with other forms of 
the superphysical, with regard to the success of 
exorcism I am sceptical. I have been present 
when exorcism has been tried—tried on people 
supposed to be obsessed with demoniacal spirits, 
and tried on spontaneous psychic phenomena 
in haunted houses—and in both cases it has 
failed. Now, although, as I have said, I regard 
lycanthropy in the light of a property, and do 

71 


72 


WERWOLVES 


not believe in the lycanthropist being possessed 
of a separate individual spirit, I am inclined to 
think, were exorcism efficacious at all, that it 
would take effect on werwolves, since the pro¬ 
perty of werwolfery is a gift which is, more 
or less, directly acquired from the malevolent 
spirits. 

But I am not only dubious as to the powers 
of exorcism generally, I am also dubious as to 
its effect on werwolves. I have come across a 
good many alleged cases of its having been 
successfully practised on werwolves, but in 
regard to these cases, the authority is not very 
reliable, nor the corroborative evidence strong. 

Nearly all the methods prescribed embrace 
the use of some potion ; such, for example, as 
sulphur, asafoetida, and castoreum, mixed with 
clear spring water; or hypericum, compounded 
with vinegar—which two potions seem to have 
been (and to be still) the most favoured recipes 
for removing the devilish power. 

The ceremony of exorcism proceeded as 
follows: The werwolf was sprinkled three 
times with one of the above solutions, and 
saluted with the sign of the cross, or addressed 
thrice by his baptismal name, each address 
being accompanied by a blow on the forehead 
with a knife; or he was sprinkled, whilst at 
the same time his girdle was removed; or in 
lieu of being sprinkled, he had three drops of 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 73 


blood drawn from his chest, or was compelled 
to kneel in one spot for a great number of 
years. 

A full description of the practice and failure 
of exorcism was cited to me the other day in 
connexion with a comparatively recent hap¬ 
pening in Asiatic Russia :— 

Tina Peroviskei, a wealthy young widow, 
who lived in St. Nicholas Street, Moscow— 
not a hundred yards from the house of Herr 
Schauman, the well-known German banker 
and horticulturist (every one in Russia has 
heard of the Schauman tulips)—met a gentle¬ 
man named Ivan Baranoff at a friend s house, 
and, despite the warning of her brother, married 
him. 

Ivan Baranoff did not look more than thirty 
years of age. He was usually dressed in grey 
furs—a grey fur coat, grey fur leggings, and a 
grey fur cap. His features were very hand¬ 
some—at least, so Tina thought—his hair was 
flaxen, glossy, and bright as a mirror; and his 
mouth, when open, displayed a most brilliant set 
of even, white teeth. Tina had three children 
by her first husband, and the fuss Ivan Baranoff 
made of them pleased her immensely. Their 
own father never evinced a greater anxiety for 
their welfare. Ivan brought them the most 
expensive toys and sweetmeats—particularly 
sweetmeats—and would insist on seeing for 


74 


WERWOLVES 


himself that they had plenty of rich, creamy 
milk, fresh eggs, and the best of butter. 

“You’ll kill them with kindness,” Tina often 
remonstrated. “They are too fat by half now.” 

“ They can’t be too fat,” Ivan would reply. 
“No one is too fat. I love to see rosy cheeks 
and stout limbs. Wait till you’re in the 
country ! Then you may talk about putting on 
flesh. The air there will fatten you even more 
than the food.” 

“ Then we shall burst, and there will be an 
end of us,” Tina would laughingly say. 

But despite all this, despite the way in 
which he fondled and caressed them, the 
children involuntarily shrank away from Ivan ; 
and on Tina angrily demanding the reason, 
they told her they could not help it—there was 
something in his bright eyes and touch that 
frightened them. When Tina’s brothers and 
sisters heard of this, they upheld the children. 

“We are not in the least surprised,” they 
said ; “ his eyes are cruel—so are his lips ; and 
as for his eyebrows—those dark, straight eye¬ 
brows that meet in a point over the nose—why, 
every one knows what a bad sign that is! ” 

But Tina grew so angry they fiad to desist. 
“You are jealous,” she said to her brothers. 
“You envy him his looks and money.” And 
to her sisters she said, “ You only wish you 
could have had him yourselves. You know I 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 75 


love him already far more than I ever loved 
Rupert.” (Rupert was her first husband.) 

And within a month or so of the marriage 
Tina left all her relatives in Moscow, and, 
accompanied by her children and dogs—some 
people hinted that Tina was fonder of her dogs 
than of her children—went with Ivan Baranoff 
to his ancestral home near Orsk. 

Though accustomed to the cold, Tina found 
the climate of Orsk almost more than she 
could bear. Her husband s house, which occu¬ 
pied an extremely solitary position on the 
confines of a gloomy forest, some few miles 
from the town, was a large, grey stone building 
full of dark winding passages and dungeon-like 
rooms. The furniture was scant, and the 
rooms, with the exception of those devoted to 
herself, her husband and the children, which 
were covered with crimson drugget, were 
carpetless. A more barren, inhospitable look¬ 
ing house could not be imagined, and the 
moment Tina entered it, her spirits sank to 
zero. The atmosphere of the place frightened 
her the most. It was not that it was merely 
forlorn and cheerless, but there was a some¬ 
thing in it that reminded her of the smell of 
the animal houses in the Zoological Gardens in 
Moscow, and a something she could not 
analyse—a something which she concluded 
must be peculiar to the house. The children 


76 


WERWOLVES 


were very much upset. The sight of the dark 
entrance hall and wide, silent staircases, bathed 
in gloom, terrified them. 

“Oh, mother!” they cried, clutching hold of 
Tina Baranoff and dragging her back, “ we 
can never live here. Take us away at once. 
Look at those things. Whatever are they ? ” 
And they pointed to the shadows—queerly 
shaped shadows—that lay in thick clusters on 
the stairs and all around them. 

Tina did not know what to say. Her own 
apprehensions and the only too obvious terror 
of the dogs, whom she had literally to drive 
across the threshold, and who whined and 
cringed at her feet, confirming the children’s 
fears, made it impossible for her to check 
them. Moreover, since leaving Moscow the 
warnings of her friends and relations had often 
come back to her. Though Ivan had never 
ceased to be kind, his conduct roused her 
suspicions. During the journey, which he had 
insisted should be performed in a droshky, he 
halted every evening directly the moon became 
invisible, and used to disappear regularly 
between dusk and sunrise. He would never 
tell her where he went or attempt to explain 
the oddness of his conduct, but when pressed 
by her would merely say : 

“ It is a habit. I always like to roam abroad 
in the night-time—it would be very bad for 
my health if I did not.” 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 77 


And this was all Tina could get out of him. 
She noticed, too, what her blind infatuation 
had prevented her observing before, that there 
was a fierce expression in his eyes when he set 
out on these nocturnal rambles, and that on his 
return the corners of his mouth and his long 
finger-nails were always smeared with blood. 
Furthermore, she noticed that although he 
was concerned about the appetites of herself 
and the children, he ate very little cooked food 
himself—never vegetables or bread—and 
would often furtively put a raw piece of meat 
into his mouth when he thought no one was 
looking. 

Tina hoped that these irregularities would 
cease on their arrival at the chateau, but, on 
the contrary, they rather increased, and she 
became greatly perturbed. 

The second night after their arrival, when 
she had been in bed some time and was nearly 
asleep, Tina, between her half-closed eyelids, 
watched her husband get out of bed, stealthily 
open the window, and drop from the sill. 
Some hours later she was again aroused. She 
heard the growl of a wolf—and immediately 
afterwards saw Ivan’s grey-clad head at the 
window. He came softly into the room, and 
as he tiptoed across the floor to the washstand, 
Tina saw splashes of blood on his face and 
coat, whilst it dripped freely from his finger- 


78 


WERWOLVES 


tips. In the morning the news was brought 
her by the children that one of her favourite 
dogs was dead—eaten by some wild animal, 
presumably a wolf. Tinas position now 
became painful in the extreme. She was more 
than suspicious of her husband, and had no 
one—saving her children—in whom she could 
confide. The house seemed to be under a 
ban; no one, not even a postman or trades¬ 
man, ever came near it, and with the exception 
of the two servants, whose silent, gliding 
movements and light glittering eyes filled both 
her and her children with infinite dread, she 
did not see a soul. 

On four consecutive nights one of her four dogs 
was killed, each in precisely the same manner ; 
and on each of these consecutive nights Tina 
watched Ivan surreptitiously leave the house 
and return all bloodstained, and accompanied 
by the distant howl of wolves. And on the 
day following the death of each dog respec¬ 
tively, Tina noticed the grey glinting eyes of 
the two servants become more and more 
earnestly fixed on the children and herself. At 
meal-times the eyes never left her ; she was 
conscious of their scrutiny at every mouthful 
she took ; and when she passed them in the 
passages, she instinctively felt their gaze 
following her steadily till she was out of sight. 
Sometimes, hearing a stealthy breathing out- 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 79 


side her room, she would quickly open the 
door, demanding who was there; and she 
invariably caught one or other of the servants 
slinking away disconcerted, but still peeping 
at her furtively from under his long pointed 
eyebrows. When she spoke to them they 
answered her in harsh, curiously discordant 
tones, and usually only in monosyllables ; but 
she never heard them converse with one 
another save in whispers—always in whispers. 
The house was now full of shadows—and 
whispers. They haunted her even in her 
sleep. For the first two or three days her 
husband had been communicative; but he 
gradually grew more and more taciturn, until at 
last he rarely said anything at all. He merely 
watched her—watched her wherever she went, 
and whatever she did ; and he watched the 
children—particularly the children—with the 
same expression, the same undefinable secretive 
expression that harmonized so well with the 
shadows and whispers. And it was this treat¬ 
ment—the treatment she now received from 
her husband—that made Tina appreciate the 
company of her children. Before, they had 
been quite a tertiary consideration—Ivan had 
come first; then the dogs; and lastly, Hilda, 
Olga, and Peter. But this order was at 
length reversed ; and on the death of the last 
of her pets, Hilda, Olga and Peter stood first. 


80 


THE WERWOLVES 


She spent practically every minute of the 
day with them ; and, despite the protestations 
of her husband, converted her dressing-room 
into a bedroom for them. The first evening 
of their removal to their new quarters, Tina 
sat and played with them till one after another 
they fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Then 
she sat beside them and examined them 
curiously. Hilda, the eldest, was lying com¬ 
posed and orderly, with pale cheek and smooth 
hair, her limbs straight, her head slightly bent, 
the bedclothes unruffled upon the regularly 
heaving chest. How pretty Hilda looked, and 
how odd it was that she, Tina, had never 
noticed the beauty of the child before ! Why, 
with her fair complexion, delicate features, and 
perfectly shaped arms and hands she would 
undoubtedly one day take all Moscow by 
storm ; and every one would say, “ Do you 
know who that lovely girl is? She is the 
daughter of Tina—Tina Baranoff. [She 
shuddered at the name Baranoff.] No 
wonder she is beautiful! ” 

Tina turned from Hilda to Olga. What a 
contrast, but not an unpleasant one—for Olga 
was pretty, too, though in a different style. 
What a sight!—defying all order and bursting 
all bounds, flushed, tumbled and awry—the 
round arms tossed up, the rosy face flung back, 
the bedclothes pushed off, the pillow flung out. 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 81 


the nightcap one way, the hair another—all that 
was disorderly and lovely by night, all that 
was unruly and winning by day. Tina— 
dainty, elegant, perfumed, manicured Tina— 
bent over untidy little Olga and kissed her. 

Then she turned to Peter, and, unable to 
resist the temptation, tickled his toes and woke 
him. When she had at last sent him to sleep 
again, it was almost dinner-time ; and she had 
barely got into her dress when one of the 
servants rapped at the door to say that the meal 
was ready. The house was very large, and 
Tina had to pass through two halls and down a 
long corridor before reaching the room where 
the dinner was served. Rather to her relief 
than otherwise, her husband did not put in an 
appearance, and a note from him informed her 
that he had unexpectedly been called away on 
business and would not be able to return till 
late the following day. 

Tina did not enjoy her dinner. The soup 
had rather a peculiar flavour, but she knew it 
was useless to make any comment. The 
servants either could not or would not under¬ 
stand, and Ivan invariably upheld them in 
everything they did. Unable to bear the 
man’s eyes continually fixed on her, she told 
him not to wait, and hurried through the meal 
so as to get him out of the way, and be left for 
the rest of the evening in peace. The big 


82 


WERWOLVES 


wood fire appealed to Tina—it was the only 
thing in that part of the house that seemed to 
have any life—and she resolved to sit by it, 
and, perhaps, skim through a book. Tina 
seldom read—in Moscow, all her evenings were 
spent at cards. She remembered, however, 
that somebody had told her repeatedly, and 
emphatically, that she ought to read Tolstoys 
“ Resurrection,” and she had actually brought 
it with her. Now she would wade through it. 
But whether it was the heat of the fire, or the 
lateness of the hour, or both, her senses grew 
more and more drowsy, and before she had 
begun to read, she fell asleep. 

She was, at length, partially awakened by a 
loud noise. At first her sleepy senses paid little 
attention and she dozed on. But again she 
was roused. A noise which grew louder and 
louder at last compelled her to shake off sleep, 
and starting up, she opened the door and 
looked into the passage. A few streaks of 
moonlight, streaming through an iron grating 
high up in the wall, enabled her to see a tall 
figure stealing softly along the corridor, with 
its back towards her. The thing was so 
extraordinary that for a moment or so she 
fancied she must still be dreaming ; but the 
cold night air blowing freely in her face speedily 
assured her that what she saw was grim reality. 
The thing was a monstrosity, a hideous hybrid 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 83 


of man and beast, and as she gazed at it, too 
horror-stricken to move, a second and third 
form exactly similar to it crept out from among 
the shadows against the wall and joined it. And 
Tina, yielding to a sudden fascination, followed 
in their wake. In this fashion they crossed the 
hall and ascended the staircase, Tina keeping 
well behind them. She knew where they were 
aiming for, and any little doubt that she might 
have had was set at rest, when they turned 
into the passage leading to her bedroom. A 
moaning cry of fear from one of the children 
told her that they, too, knew by intuition of 
their coming danger. Tina was now in an 
agony of mind as to what to do for the best. 
That the intention of these hideous creatures— 
be they what they might—phantasms or things 
of flesh and blood—was sinister, she had not 
the slightest doubt; but how could she prevent 
them getting at her children ? The most she 
could do would be to shout to Hilda and tell 
her to lock the two doors. But would that 
keep them out ? She opened her mouth and 
jerked out “ Hilda! ” She tried again, but her 
throat had completely dried up, and she could 
not articulate another syllable. The sound, 
however, though faint, had been sufficient to 
attract the attention of the hindermost creature. 
It turned, and the light from the moon, coming 
through the half-open door of her bedroom. 


84 


WERWOLVES 


shone on its glittering eyes and white teeth. 
It sprang towards her. With one convulsive 
bound Tina cleared the threshold of a room 
immediately behind her, dashed the door to— 
locked it—barred it—flung a chair against it; 
and stood in an agony, for which no words 
exist. She seemed to see, all in a moment, 
herself safe, and her children—not a door 
closed between them and those dreadful jaws ! 
She then became stupefied with terror, and a 
strange, dinning sound, like the pulsation of her 
heart, filled her ears and shut out every sense. 

“It is a devil! a devil!” she repeated 
mechanically ; and then, forcing herself out of 
the trance-like feeling that oppressed her, she 
combated with the cowardice that prevented 
her rushing out—if only to die in an attempt to 
save her children. She had not realized till 
then that it was possible to care for them more 
even—much more even—than she had cared 
for her dogs. She placed one hand on the 
lock, and looked round for some weapon of 
defence. There was not a thing she could use 
—not a stanchion to the window, not a rod to 
the bed. And even if there had been, how 
futile in her puny grip! She glanced at her 
tiny white fingers with their carefully trimmed 
and polished nails, and smiled—a grim smile 
of irony. Then she placed her ear against the 
panels of the door and listened—and from the 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 85 


other side came the sound of heavy panting 
and the stealthy movement of hands. Suddenly 
a scream rang out, so clear and vibrating, so 
full of terror, that her heart stood still and 
her blood congealed. It was Hilda ! Hilda 
shrieking “ Mother! ” There it was again, 
“ Mother! Mother ! Help ! Help ! ” Then a 
series of savage snarls and growls and more 
shrieks—the combined shrieks of all three 
children. Shrieks and growls were then 
mingled together in one dreadful, hideous 
pandemonium, which all of a sudden ceased, 
and was succeeded by the loud crunching and 
cracking of bones. At last that, too, ceased, 
and Tina heard footsteps rapidly approaching 
her door. For a moment the room and every¬ 
thing in it swam round her. She felt choked ; 
the dinning in her ears came again, it beat 
louder and louder and completely paralysed 
her. A crash on the door panel, however, 
abruptly restored her faculties, and the idea 
of escaping by the window for the first time 
entered her mind. If her husband could use 
the window as a means of exit, why couldn’t 
she.^ Not a second was to be lost—the crea¬ 
tures outside were now striving their utmost 
to get in. It was the work of a moment to 
throw open the window, and almost before she 
knew she had opened it, she found herself 
standing on the ground beneath. The night 


86 


WERWOLVES 


had grown darker; she could not see the path ; 
she knew that she was losing time, and yet that 
all depended on her haste ; she felt fevered with 
impatience, yet torpid with terror. At length 
she disengaged herself from the broken, 
uneven soil on to which she had dropped, and 
struggled forward. On and on she went, not 
knowing where her next step would land her, 
and dreading every moment to hear the steps 
of her pursuers. The darkness of the night 
favoured her, and by dodging in and out the 
bushes and never keeping to the same track, 
although still keeping a forward course, she suc¬ 
cessfully eluded her enemies, whose hoarse cries 
gradually grew fainter and fainter. By good 
luck she reached the high road, which eventu¬ 
ally brought her to Orsk ; and there she sought 
shelter in a hotel. In the morning, on learning 
from the landlord that a friend of hers, a 
Colonel Majendie, was in the town, Tina sought 
him out, and into his sympathizing ears poured 
the story of her adventures. 

Now it so happened that a priest of the 
name of Rappaport, a friend of the Colonel’s, 
came in before Tina had finished her story, 
and on being told what had happened, declared 
that Ivan Baranoff and his servants had long 
been suspected of being werwolves. He then 
begged that before anything was done to them 
he might be allowed to try his powers of 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 87 


exorcism. The Colonel ridiculed the idea, 
but in the end was persuaded to postpone 
his visit to the chateau till the evening, and 
to go there with an escort, a quartette of his 
most trusted soldiers, and accompanied by his 
friend the Rev. Father Rappaport. Accord¬ 
ingly, at about nine o’clock the party set out, 
and, on arriving at the house, found it in total 
darkness and apparently deserted. 

But they had not waited long before a series 
of savage growls from the adjacent thicket put 
them on their guard, and almost immediately 
afterwards three werwolves stalked across the 
path and prepared to enter the house. At a 
word from the Colonel the soldiers leaped 
forward, and after a most desperate scuffle, in 
which they were all more or less badly mauled, 
succeeded in securing their quarry. In more 
civilized parts of the country the police would 
have been called in, but here, where that good 
old law, “ Might is right,” still held good, a 
man in the Colonel’s position could do what¬ 
ever he deemed most expedient, and Colonel 
Majendie had made up his mind that justice 
should no longer be delayed. The chateau 
had borne an ill reputation for generations. 
From time immemorial Ivan Baranoffs 
ancestors had been suspected of lycanthropy, 
and this last deed of the family was their 
crowning atrocity. 


88 


WERWOLVES 


“You may exorcize the devils first,” the 
Colonel grimly remarked to the priest, wiping 
the blood off his sleeves. “We will hang and 
quarter the brutes afterwards.” 

To this the holy Father willingly agreed, for 
he did not care what happened so long as his 
exorcism was successful. 

The rites that were performed in connexion 
with this ceremony (and which I understand 
are those most commonly observed in exor¬ 
cizing all manner of evil spirits) were as 
follows :— 

A circle of seven feet radius was drawn on 
the ground in white chalk. At the centre 
of the circle were inscribed, in yellow chalk, 
certain magical figures representing Mercury, 
and about them was drawn, in white chalk, 
a triangle within a circle of three feet radius— 
the centre of the circle being the same as that 
of the outer circle. Within this inner circle 
were then placed the three captive werwolves. 
It would be well to explain here that in exor¬ 
cism, as well as in the evocation of spirits, great 
attention must be paid to the position of the 
stars, as astrology exercises the greatest 
influence on the spirit world. The present 
occasion, the reverend Father pointed out, 
was specially favourable for the casting out 
of devils, since from 8.32 p.m. to 9.16 p.m. 
was under the dominion of the great angel 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 89 


Mercury—the most bitter opponent of all evil 
spirits; that is to say, Mercury was in 17° II. 
on the cusp of Seventh House, slightly to south 
of due west. 

X) going to d with ^ in 14° II. 

^ to ^ ^ ^ 130° T? 

Round the outer circle the reverend Father 
now proceeded to place, at equal intervals, 
hand-lamps, burning olive oil. He then erected 
a rude altar of wood, about a foot to the south¬ 
east of the circumference of the inner circle. 
Exactly opposite this altar, and about ij feet 
to the far side of the circumference of the inner 
circle, he ordered the soldiers to build a fire, and 
to place over it a tripod and pot, the latter 
containing two pints of pure spring water. 

He then prepared a mixture consisting of 
these ingredients :— 

2 drachms of sulphur, 
oz. of castoreum. 

6 drachms of opium. 

3 drachms of asafoetida. 

^ oz. of hypericum. 

f oz. of ammonia. 

J oz. of camphor. 

When this was thoroughly mixed he put it in 
the water in the pot, adding to it a portion 
of a mandrake root, a live snake, two live 
toads in linen bags, and a fungus. He then 


90 


WERWOLVES 


bound together, with red tape, a wand con¬ 
sisting of three sprigs taken, respectively, from 
an ash, birch, and white poplar. 

He next proceeded to pray, kneeling in 
front of the altar ; and continued praying 
till the unearthly cries of the toads announced 
the fact that the water, in which they were 
immersed, was beginning to boil. Slowly 
getting up and crossing himself, he went to 
the fire, and dipping a cup in the pot, solemnly 
approached the werwolves, and slashing them 
severely across the head with his wand, dashed 
in their faces the seething liquid, calling 
out as he did so : “In the name of Our 
Blessed Lady I command thee to depart. 
Black, evil devils from hell, begone! Begone ! 
Again I say. Begone! ” He repeated this 
three times to the vociferous yells of the 
smarting werwolves, who struggled so fran¬ 
tically that they succeeded in bursting their 
bonds, and, leaping to their feet, endeavoured 
to escape into the bushes. The soldiers at 
once rose in pursuit and the priest was left 
alone. He had got rid of the flesh and blood, 
and he presumed he had got rid of the devils. 
But that remained to be proved. 

In the chase that ensued one of the wer¬ 
wolves was shot, and, simultaneously with 
death, metamorphosis into the complete form 
of a huge grey wolf took place. The other 


WERWOLVES AND EXORCISM 91 


two eluded their pursuers for some time, but 
were eventually tracked owing to the discovery 
of the half-eaten remains of an old woman and 
two children in a cave. True to their lupine 
natures, I they showed no fight when cornered, 
and a couple of well-directed bullets put an end 
to their existence—the same metamorphosis 
occurring in their case as in the case of their 
companion. With the death of the three 
werwolves the chateau, one would naturally 
have thought, might have emerged from its 
ban. But no such thing. It speedily acquired 
a reputation for being haunted. 

And that it was haunted—haunted not only 
by werwolves but by all sorts of ghastly 
phantasms—I have no doubt. 

I was told, not long ago, that Tina, whose 
property it became, pulled it down, and that 
another house, replete with every modern 
luxury—but equally haunted ^—now marks the 
site of the old chateau. 

* The wolf and puma, alone among savage animals, give 
in directly they are brought to bay. 

2 The hauntings in houses are often due to something 
connected with the ground on which the houses are built. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE WERWOLF IN THE BRITISH ISLES 

I T is commonly known that there were once 
wolves in Great Britain and Scotland. 
Whilst history tells us of a king who 
tried to get rid of them by offering so much 
for every wolfs head that was brought to 
him, we read in romance how Llewellyn 
slew Gelert, the faithful hound that, having 
slain the wolf, saved his infant’s life ; and 
tradition has handed down to us many other 
stories of them. But the news that werwolves, 
too, once flourished in these climes will come 
as a surprise to many. 

Yet Halliwell, quoting from a Bodleian MS., 
says : “ Ther ben somme that eten chyldren 
and men, and eteth noon other flesh fro that 
tyme that thei be a-charmed with mannys 
flesh for rather thei wolde be deed; and thei 
be cleped werewolfes for men shulde be war of 
them.” 

Nor is this the only reference to them in 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


93 


ancient chronicles, for Gervase of Tilbury, in 
his “ Otia Imperiala,” writes:— 

“ Vidimus enim frequenter in Anglia per 
lunationes homines in lupos mutari, quod 
hominum ’ genus gerulphos Galli nominant, 
Angli vero were-wulf dicunt.” And Richard 
Verstegan, in his “ Restitution of Decayed 
Intelligence,” 1605, says: “The were-wolves 
are certain sorcerers who having anointed 
their bodies with an ointment which they 
make by the instinct of the devil, and putting 
on a certain enchanted girdle, do not only 
unto the view of others seem as wolves, but 
to their own thinking have both the shape 
and nature of wolves, so long as they wear 
the said girdle; and they do dispose them¬ 
selves as very wolves in worrying and killing, 
and eating most of human creatures.” 

In my investigations of haunted houses and 
my psychical research work generally, I have 
come across much that I believe to be good 
evidence in support of the testimony of these 
writers. For instance, in localities once known 
to have been the favourite haunts of wolves, 
I have met people who have informed me 
they have seen phantasms, in shape half 
human and half beast, that might well be 
the earth-bound spirits of werwolves. 

A Miss St. Denis told me she was once 
staying on a farm, in Merionethshire, where 



94 


WERWOLVES 


she witnessed a phenomenon of this class. 
The farm, though some distance from the 
village, was not far off the railway station, 
a very diminutive affair, with only one platform 
and a mere box that served as a waiting- 
room and booking-office combined. It was, 
moreover, one of those stations where the 
separate duties of station-master, porter, book¬ 
ing-clerk, and ticket-collector are performed 
by one and the same person, and where the 
signal always appears to be down. As the 
platform commanded the only paintable view 
in the neighbourhood. Miss St. Denis often 
used to resort there with her sketch-book. On 
one occasion she had stayed rather later than 
usual, and on rising hurriedly from her camp- 
stool saw, to her surprise, a figure which 
she took to be that of a man, sitting on 
a truck a few yards distant, peering at her. 
I say to her surprise, because, excepting on 
the rare occasion of a train arriving, she 
had never seen anyone at the station besides 
the station-master, and in the evening the 
platform was invariably deserted. The loneli¬ 
ness of the place was for the first time 
brought forcibly home to her. The station- 
master’s tiny house was at least some 
hundred yards away, and beyond that there 
was not another habitation nearer than the 
farm. On all sides of her, too, were black. 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


95 


frowning precipices, full of seams and fissures 
and inequalities, showing vague and shadowy 
in the fading rays of the sun. Here and 
there were the huge, gaping mouths of gloomy 
slate quarries that had long been disused, and 
were now half full of foul water. Around 
them the earth was heaped with loose 
fragments of rock which had evidently been 
detached from the principal mass and shivered 
to pieces in the fall. A few trees, among 
which were the black walnut, the slippery 
elm, and here and there an oak, grew among 
the rocks, and attested by their dwarfish 
stature the ungrateful soil in which they had 
taken root. It was not an exhilarating scene, 
but it was one that had a peculiar fascination 
for Miss St. Denis—a fascination she could 
not explain, and which she now began to 
regret. The darkness had come on very 
rapidly, and was especially concentrated, so it 
seemed to her, round the spot where she 
sat, and she could make nothing out of the 
silent figure on the truck, save that it had 
unpleasantly bright eyes and there was some¬ 
thing queer about it. She coughed to see 
if that would have any effect, and as it had 
none she coughed again. Then she spoke 
and said, “ Can you tell me the time, please ? ” 
But there was no reply, and the figure still 
sat there staring at her. Then she grew 


WERWOLVES 


uneasy and, packing up her things, walked 
out of the station, trying her best to look 
as if nothing had occurred. She glanced 
over her shoulder; the figure was following 
her. Quickening her pace, she assumed a 
jaunty air and whistled, and turning round 
again, saw the strange figure still coming 
after her. The road would soon be at its 
worst stage of loneliness, and, owing to the 
cliffs on either side of it, almost pitch dark. 
Indeed, the spot positively invited murder, 
and she might shriek herself hoarse with¬ 
out the remotest chance of making herself 
heard. To go on with this outr^ figure so 
unmistakably and persistently stalking her, 
was out of the question. Screwing up courage, 
she swung round, and, raising herself to her 
full height, cried : “ What do you want? How 
dare you ? ”—She got no further, for a sudden 
spurt of dying sunlight, playing over the 
figure, showed her it was nothing human, 
nothing she had ever conceived possible. It 
was a nude grey thing, not unlike a man 
in body, but with a wolfs head. As it sprang 
forward, its light eyes ablaze with ferocity, 
she instinctively felt in her pocket, whipped 
out a pocket flash-light, and pressed the 
button. The effect was magical; the creature 
shrank back, and putting two paw-like hands 
in front of its face to protect its eyes, faded 
into nothingness. 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


97 


She subsequently made inquiries, but could 
learn nothing beyond the fact that, in one 
of the quarries close to the place where the 
phantasm had vanished, some curious bones, 
partly human and partly animal, had been 
unearthed, and that the locality was always 
shunned after dusk. Miss St. Denis thought 
as I did, that what she had seen might very 
well have been the earth-bound spirit of a 
werwolf. 

The case of another haunting of this nature 
was related to me last year. A young married 
couple of the name of Anderson, having 
acquired, through the death of a relative, a 
snug fortune, resolved to retire from business 
and spend the rest of their lives in indolence 
and ease. Being fond of the country, they 
bought some land in Cumberland, at the foot 
of some hills, far away from any town, and 
built on it a large two-storied villa. 

They soon, however, began to experience 
trouble with their servants, who left them 
on the pretext that the place was lonely, and 
that they could not put up with the noises 
that they heard at night. The Andersons 
ridiculed their servants, but when their 
children remarked on the same thing they 
viewed the matter more seriously. “ What 
are the noises like.^” they inquired. “Wild 
animals,” Willie, the eldest child, replied. 

H 


98 


WERWOLVES 


“They come howling round the window at 
night and we hear their feet patter along 
the passage and stop at our door.” Much 
mystified, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson decided 
to sit up with the children and listen. They 
did so, and between two and three in the 
morning were much startled by a noise that 
sounded like the growling of a wolf—Mr. 
Anderson had heard wolves in Canada—im¬ 
mediately beneath the window. Throwing 
open the window, he peered out; the moon 
was fully up and every stick and stone was 
plainly discernible; but there was now no 
sound and no sign of any animal. When 
he had closed the window the growling at 
once recommenced, yet when he looked again 
nothing was to be seen. After a while the 
growling ceased, and they heard the front 
door, which they had locked before coming 
upstairs, open, and the footsteps of some 
big, soft-footed animal ascend the stairs. Mr. 
Anderson waited till the steps were just out¬ 
side the room and then flung open the door, 
but the light from his acetylene lamp re¬ 
vealed a passage full of moonbeams—nothing 
else. 

He and his wife were now thoroughly 
mystified. In the morning they explored the 
grounds, but could find no trace of footmarks, 
nothing to indicate the nature of their visitant. 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


99 


It was now close on Christmas, and as the 
noises had not been heard for some time, it 
was hoped that the disturbances would not 
occur again. The Andersons, like all modern 
parents, made idols of their children. They 
never did wrong, nothing was too good for 
them, and everything they wanted they had. 
At Christmas, perhaps, their authority was 
more particularly in evidence ; at any rate, 
it was then that the greatest care was taken 
that the menu should be in strict accordance 
with their instructions. “ What shall Santa 
Claus bring you this time, my darlings ? ” Mr. 
Anderson asked, a week or so before the great 
day arrived ; and Willie, aged six, at once 
cried out : “What a fool you are, daddy! It 
is all tosh about old Claus, there’s no such 
person I ” 

“ Wait and see 1 ” Mr. Anderson meekly 
replied. “You mark my words, he will come 
into your room on Christmas Eve laden with 
presents.” 

“ I don’t believe it! ” Willie retorted. “ You 
told us that silly tale last year and I never 
saw any Claus! ” 

“He came when you were asleep, dearie,” 
Mrs. Anderson ventured to remark. 

“Well! I’ll keep awake this time!” Willie 
shouted. 

“ And we’ll take the presents first and pinch 


100 


WERWOLVES 


old Claus afterwards,” Violet Evelyn, the 
second child, joined in. 

“And ril prick his towsers wif pins!” 
Horace, aged three and a half, echoed. “ I 
don’t care nothink for old Santa Claus! ” 
and he pulled a long nose in the manner his 
doting father had taught him. 

Christmas Eve came at last—a typical old- 
fashioned Christmas with heaps of snow on 
the ground and frost on the window-panes and 
trees. The Andersons’ house was warm and 
comfortable—for once in a way the windows 
were shut—and enormous fires blazed merrily 
away in the grates. Whilst the children spent 
most of the day viewing the good things in 
the larder and speculating how much they 
could eat of each, and which would taste the 
nicest, Mr. Anderson rehearsed in full costume 
the role of Santa Claus. He had an enormous 
sack full of presents—everything the children 
had demanded—and he meant to enter their 
room with it on his shoulder at about twelve 
o’clock. 

Tea-time came, and during the interval 
between that meal and supper all hands— 
even Horace’s—were at work, decorating the 
hall and staircases with holly and mistletoe. 
After supper “ Good King Wencelas,” “ Nod,” 
and one or two other carols were sung, and 
the children then decided to go to bed. 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


101 


It was then ten o’clock ; and exactly two 
hours later their father, elaborately clad as 
Santa Claus, and staggering, in the orthodox 
fashion, beneath a load of presents, shuffled 
softly down the passage leading to their room. 
The snow had ceased falling, the moon was 
out, and the passage flooded with a soft, 
phosphorescent glow that threw into strong 
relief every minute object. Mr. Anderson 
had got half-way along it when on his ears 
there suddenly fell a faint sound of yelping ! 
His whole frame thrilled and his mind reverted 
to the scenes of his youth—to the prairies in 
the far-off West, where, over and over again, 
he had heard these sounds, and his faithful 
Winchester repeater had stood him in good 
service. Again the yelping—this time nearer. 
Yes ! it was undoubtedly a wolf; and yet there 
was an intonation in that yelping not altogether 
wolfish—something Mr. Anderson had never 
heard before, and which he was consequently 
at a loss to define. Again it rang out—much 
nearer this time—much more trying to the 
nerves, and the cold sweat of fear burst out 
all over him. Again—close under the wall 
of the house—a moaning, snarling, drawn-out 
cry that ended in a whine so piercing that 
Mr. Anderson’s knees shook. One of the 
children, Violet Evelyn he thought, stirred 
in her bed and muttered : “ Santa Claus! 


102 


WERWOLVES 


Santa Claus! ” and Mr. Anderson, with a 
desperate effort, staggered on under his load 
and opened their door. The clock in the 
hall beneath began to strike twelve. Santa 
Claus, striving hard to appear jolly and genial, 
entered the room, and a huge grey, shadowy 
figure entered with him. A slipper thrown by 
Willie whizzed through the air, and, narrowly 
missing Santa Claus, fell to the ground with 
a clatter. There was then a deathly silence, 
and Violet and Horace, raising their heads, 
saw two strange figures standing in the centre 
of the room staring at one another—the one 
figure they at once identified by the costume. 
He was Santa Claus—but not the genial, rosy- 
cheeked Santa Claus their father had depicted. 
On the contrary, it was a Santa Claus with 
a very white face and frightened eyes—a Santa 
Claus that shook as if the snow and ice had 
given him the ague. But- the other figure— 
what was it ? Something very tall, far taller 
than their father, nude and grey, something 
like a man with the head of a wolf—a wolf 
with white pointed teeth and horrid, light eyes. 
Then they understood why it was that Santa 
Claus trembled ; and Willie stood by the side 
of his bed, white and silent. It is impossible 
to say how long this state of things would 
have lasted, or what would eventually have 
happened, had not Mrs. Anderson, anxious 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


103 


to see how Santa Claus was faring, and rather 
wondering why he was gone so long, resolved 
herself to visit the children’s room. As 
the light from her candle appeared on the 
threshold of the room the thing with the 
wolfs head vanished. 

“ Why, whatever were you all doing ? ” she 
began. Then Santa Claus and the children 
all spoke at once—whilst the sack of presents 
tumbled unheeded on the floor. Every avail¬ 
able candle was soon lighted, and mother 
and father and Willie, Violet and Horace all 
spent the remainder of that night in close 
company. On the following day it was pro¬ 
posed, and carried unanimously, that the house 
should be put up for sale. This was done at 
the earliest opportunity, and fortunately for 
the Andersons suitable tenants were soon 
found. Before leaving, however, Mr. Ander¬ 
son made another and more exhaustive search 
of the grounds, and discovered, in a cave in 
the hills immediately behind the house, a 
number of bones. Amongst them was the 
skull of a wolf, and lying close beside it a 
human skeleton, with only the skull missing. 
Mr. Anderson burnt the bones, hoping that 
by so doing he would rid the house of its 
unwelcome visitor; and, as his tenants so 
far have not complained, he believes that the 
hauntings have actually ceased. 


104 


WERWOLVES 


A lady whom I met at Tavistock some 
years ago told me that she had seen a 
phantasm, which she believed to be that of 
a werwolf, in the Valley of the Doones, 
Exmoor. She was walking home alone, late 
one evening, when she saw on the path 
directly in front of her the tall grey figure 
of a man with a wolfs head. Advancing 
stealthily forward, this creature was preparing 
to spring on a large rabbit that was crouching 
on the ground, apparently too terror-stricken 
to move, when the abrupt appearance of a 
stag bursting through the bushes in a wild 
state of stampede caused it to vanish. Prior 
to this occurrence, my informant had never 
seen a ghost, nor had she, indeed, believed 
in them; but now, she assures me, she is 
quite convinced as to their existence, and 
is of the opinion that the sub-human phe¬ 
nomenon she had witnessed was the spirit 
of one of those werwolves referred to by 
Gervase of Tilbury and Richard Verstegan 
—werwolves who were still earthbound 
owing to their incorrigible ferocity. 

This opinion I can readily endorse, adding 
only that, considering the number of wer¬ 
wolves there must once have been in England, 
it is a matter of some surprise to me that 
phantasms are not more frequently seen. 

Here is another account of this type of 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


105 


haunting narrated to me some summers ago by 
a Mr. Warren, who at the time he saw the 
phenomenon was staying in the Hebrides, which 
part of the British Isles is probably richer than 
any other in spooks of all sorts. 

“ I was about fifteen years of age at the 
time,” Mr. Warren said, “and had for several 
years been residing with my grandfather, who 
was an elder in the Kirk of Scotland. He was 
much interested in geology, and literally filled 
the house with fossils from the pits and caves 
round where we dwelt. One morning he came 
home in a great state of excitement, and made 
me go with him to look at some ancient 
remains he had found at the bottom of a dried- 
up tarn. ‘ Look ! ’ he cried, bending down and 
pointing at them, ‘ here is a human skeleton 
with a wolfs head. What do you make of it ? ’ 
I told him I did not know, but supposed it 
must be some kind of monstrosity. ‘ It s a 
werwolf! ’ he rejoined, ‘ that’s what it is. A 
werwolf! This island was once overrun with 
satyrs and werwolves ! Help me carry it to 
the house.’ I did as he bid me, and we placed 
it on the table in the back kitchen. That 
evening I was left alone in the house, my 
grandfather and the other members of the 
household having gone to the kirk. For some 
time I amused myself reading, and then, fancy¬ 
ing I heard a noise in the back premises, I 


106 


WERWOLVES 


went into the kitchen. There was no one 
about, and becoming convinced that it could 
only have been a rat that had disturbed me, I 
sat on the table alongside the alleged remains 
of the werwolf, and waited to see if the noises 
would recommence. I was thus waiting in a 
listless sort of way, my back bent, my elbows 
on my knees, looking at the floor and thinking 
of nothing in particular, when there came a loud 
rat, tat, tat of knuckles on the window-pane. I 
immediately turned in the direction of the 
noise and encountered, to my alarm, a dark 
face looking in at me. At first dim and in¬ 
distinct, it became more and more complete, 
until it developed into a very perfectly defined 
head of a wolf terminating in the neck of a 
human being. Though greatly shocked, my 
first act was to look in every direction for a 
possible reflection—but in vain. There was no 
light either without or within, other than that 
from the setting sun—nothing that could in 
any way have produced an illusion. I looked 
at the face and marked each feature intently. 
It was unmistakably a wolfs face, the jaws 
slightly distended; the lips wreathed in a 
savage snarl; the teeth sharp and white; the 
eyes light green; the ears pointed. The 
expression of the face was diabolically 
malignant, and as it gazed straight at me my 
horror was as intense as my wonder. This it 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


107 


seemed to notice, for a look of savage exulta¬ 
tion crept into its eyes, and it raised one hand 
—a slender hand, like that of a woman, though 
with prodigiously long and curved finger-nails— 
menacingly, as if about to dash in the window- 
pane. Remembering what my grandfather 
had told me about evil spirits, I crossed myself; 
but as this had no effect, and I really feared 
the thing would get at me, I ran out of the 
kitchen and shut and locked the door, remain¬ 
ing in the hall till the family returned. My 
grandfather was much upset when I told him 
what had happened, and attributed my failure 
to make the spirit depart to my want of faith. 
Had he been there, he assured me, he would 
soon have got rid of it; but he nevertheless 
made me help him remove the bones from the 
kitchen, and we reinterred them in the very 
spot where we had found them, and where, for 
aught I know to the contrary, they still lie.” 

The peasant class in all parts of the British 
Isles are so sensitive to ridicule, and so 
suspicious of being “ got at,” that it is very 
difficult to extract any information from them 
with regard to the superphysical. At first they 
invariably deny their belief in spirits, and it is 
only by dint of the utmost persuasion un¬ 
accompanied by any air of patronage—which 
the Celtic peasant detests—that one is finally 
able to loosen their tongues as to uncanny 


108 


WERWOLVES 


occurrences, hauntings, and rumours of haunt- 
ings, in their neighbourhood. In eliciting 
information of this nature, I have, I think, by 
reason of my tactful manner, often succeeded 
where others have failed. 

In a village at the foot of Ben MacDhui a 
shepherd of the name of Colin Graeme informed 
me that he remembered hearing his grand¬ 
father, who died at the age of ninety, speak of 
an old man called Tam McPherson whom he— 
the grandfather—had known intimately as a 
boy. This old man, so Colins grandfather 
said, had perfect recollections of a man in the 
village called Saunderson being suspected of 
being a werwolf. He used to describe 
Saunderson as “ a mon with evil, leerie eyes, 
and eyebrows that met in a point over his 
nose ” ; and went on to say that Saunderson 
lived in a cave in the mountains where his fore¬ 
fathers, also suspected of being werwolves, 
had lived before him, and that when on his— 
Saunderson’s—death this cave was visited by 
some of the villagers, a quantity of queer 
bones—some human and some belonging to 
wolves—were discovered lying in corners, 
partially covered with stones and loose 
earth. 

I have heard similar stories in Wales, and 
have been conducted to one or two spots, one 
near Iremadac and the other on the Epynt 


IN THE BRITISH ISLES 


109 


Hills, where, local tradition still has it, wer¬ 
wolves once flourished. 

According to legend St. Patrick turned 
Vereticus, a Welsh king, into a wolf, whilst the 
werwolf daughter of a Welsh prince was said to 
have destroyed her father’s enemies during her 
nocturnal metamorphoses. In Ireland, too, are 
many legends of werwolves ; and it is said of 
at least some half-dozen of the old families 
that at some period—as the result of a curse— 
each member of the clan was doomed to be a 
wolf for seven years. 




CHAPTER VII 

THE WERWOLF IN FRANCE 

I N no country has the werwolf flourished as 
in France, where it is known as the loup 
garou ; where it has existed in all parts, in 
every age, and where it is even yet to be found 
in the more remote districts. Hence one could 
fill a dozen volumes with the stories, many of 
them well authenticated, of French werwolves. 
As far back as the sixth century we hear of 
them infesting the woods and valleys of 
Brittany and Burgundy, the Landes, and the 
mountainous regions of the Cote d’Or and the 
Cevennes. 

Occasionally a werwolf would break into a 
convent and make its meal off the defenceless 
nuns ; occasionally it would select for its repast 
some nice fat abbot waddling unsuspectingly 
home to his monastery. 

Not all these werwolves were evilly disposed 
people; many, on the contrary, were exceed¬ 
ingly virtuous, and owed their metamorphosis 
uo 


IN FRANCE 


111 


to the vengeance of witch or wizard. When 
this was the case their piety sometimes pre¬ 
vailed to such an extent that not even 
metamorphosis into wolfish form could render 
it ineffective ; and there are instances where 
werwolves of this type have not only refrained 
from taking human life, but have actually gone 
out of their way to protect it. Of such 
instances, well authenticated, probably none 
would be more remarkable than those I am 
about to narrate. 

The Case of the Abbot Gilbert, of the Arc 
Monastery, on the Banks of the Loire 
Gilbert had been to a village fair, where the 
good vintage and hot sun combined had proved 
so trying that on his way home, through a 
4ense and lonely forest, he had gone to sleep 
and been thrown from his horse. In falling he 
had bruised and cut himself so prodigiously 
that the blood from his wounds attracted to the 
spot a number of big wild cats. Taken at a 
strong disadvantage, and without any weapons 
to defend himself, Gilbert would soon have 
fallen a victim to the ferocity of these savage 
creatures had it not been for the opportune 
arrival of a werwolf. A desperate battle at 
once ensued, in which the werwolf eventually 
gained the victory, though not without being 
severely lacerated. 


112 


WERWOLVES 


Despite Gilbert’s protestations, for he was 
loath to be seen in such strange company, the 
werwolf accompanied him back to the monas¬ 
tery, where, upon hearing the Abbot’s story, it 
was enthusiastically welcomed and its wounds 
attended to. At dawn it was restored to its 
natural shape, and the monks, one and all, 
were startled out of their senses to find them¬ 
selves in the presence of a stern and awesome 
dignitary of the Church, who immediately began 
to lecture the Abbot for his unseemly conduct 
the previous day, ordering him to undergo such 
penance as eventually, robbing him of half his 
size and all his self-importance, led to his 
resignation. 

The Case of Roland Bertin 
Andr6 Bonivon, the hero of the other inci¬ 
dent, was eminently a man of war. He com¬ 
manded a schooner called the “ Bonaventure,” 
which was engaged in harassing the Huguenot 
settlements along the shores of the Gulf of 
Lions, during the reign of Louis XIV. On 
one of his marauding expeditions Bonivon 
sailed up an estuary of the Rhone rather further 
than he had intended, and having no pilot on 
board, ran ashore in the darkness. A thunder¬ 
storm came on ; a general panic ensued ; and 
Bonivon soon found himself struggling in a 
whirlpool. Powerful swimmer though he was. 


IN FRANCE 


113 


he would most certainly have been drowned 
had not some one come to his assistance, and, 
freeing him from the heavy clothes which 
weighed him down, dragged him on dry land. 
The moment Bonivon got on terra firma^ 
sailor-like, he extended his hand to grip that of 
♦ his rescuer, when, to his dismay and terror, 
instead of a hand he grasped a huge hairy 
paw. 

Convinced that he was in the presence of the 
Devil, who doubtless highly approved of the 
. thousand and one atrocities he had perpetrated 
on the helpless Huguenots, he threw himself 
on his knees and implored the forgiveness of 
Heaven. 

His rescuer waited awhile in grim silence, 
and then, lifting him gently to his feet, led him 
some considerable distance inland till they 
arrived at a house on the outskirts of a small 
town. 

Here Bonivon s conductor halted, and, open- 
i ing the door, signed to the captain to enter. 

All within was dark and silent, and the air was 
‘ tainted with a sickly, pungent odour that filled 
Bonivon with the gravest apprehensions. 
Dragging him along, Bonivon’s guide took him 
into a room, and leaving him there for some 
seconds, reappeared carrying a lantern. Boni¬ 
von now saw for the first time the face of his 
I conductor—it was that of a werwolf. With a 


114 


WERWOLVES 


shriek of terror Bonivon turned to run, but, 
catching his foot on a mat, fell sprawling on 
the floor. 

Here he remained sobbing and shaking with 
fear till he was once more taken by the werwolf 
and set gently on his feet. 

To Bonivon’s surprise a tray full of eatables 
was standing on the table, and the werwolf, 
motioning to him to sit down, signed to him 
to eat. 

Being ravenously hungry, Bonivon “fell to,” 
and, despite his fears—for being by nature alive 
to, and, by reason of his calling, forced to guard 
against the treachery of his fellow creatures, 
he more than half suspected some subtle design 
underlying this act of kindness—demolished 
every particle of food. The meal thus con¬ 
cluded, Bonivon’s benefactor retired, locking 
the door after him. 

No sooner had the sound of his steps in the 
stone hall ceased than Bonivon ran to the 
window, hoping thereby to make his escape. 
But the iron bars were too firmly fixed—no 
matter how hard he pulled, tugged and 
wrenched, they remained as immovable as 
ever. Then his heart began to palpitate, his 
hair to bristle up, and his knees to totter; his 
thoughts were full of speculations as to how he 
would be killed and what it would feel like to 
be eaten alive. His conscience, too, rising up 


IN FRANCE 


115 


in judgment against him, added its own par¬ 
oxysms of dismay, paroxysms which were still 
further augmented by the finding of the dead 
body of a woman, nude and horribly mutilated, 
lying doubled up and partly concealed by a 
curtain. Such a discovery could not fail to fill 
his heart with unspeakable horror; for he con¬ 
cluded that he himself, unless saved by a 
miracle—a favour he could hardly hope for, 
considering his past conduct—would undergo 
the same fate before morning. At a loss to 
know what else to do, he sat upon the corner of 
the table, resting his chin on the palms of his 
hands, and engaged in anticipations of the 
most frightful nature. 

Shortly after dawn he heard the sound of 
footsteps approaching the room ; the door 
slowly began to open : a little wider and a little 
wider, and then, when Bonivon s heart was on 
the point of bursting, it suddenly swung open 
wide, and the cold, grey dawn falling on the 
threshold revealed not a werwolf, but—a 
human being: a man in the unmistakable 
garb of a Huguenot minister! 

The reaction was so great that Bonivon 
rolled off the table and went into paroxysms of 
ungovernable laughter. 

At length, when he had sobered down, the 
Huguenot, laying a hand on his shoulder, said : 
“ Do you know now where you are.^ Do you 



116 


WERWOLVES 


recognize this room? No! Well, I will ex¬ 
plain. You are in the house of Roland Bertin, 
and the body lying over yonder is that of my 
wife, whom your crew barbarously murdered 
yesterday when they sacked this village. They 
took me with them, and it was your intention 
to have me tortured and then drowned as soon 
as you got to sea. Do you know me now ? ” 

Bonivon nodded—he could not have spoken 
to save his life. 

“ Bien I ” the minister went on. “I am. a 
werwolf—I was bewitched some years ago by 
the woman Grenier, Mere Grenier, who lives in 
the forest at the back of our village. As soon 
as it was dark I metamorphosed; then the ship 
ran ashore, and every one leaped overboard. I 
saw you drowning. I saved you.” 

The captain again made a fruitless effort to 
speak, and the Huguenot continued:— 

“ Why did I save you ?—you, who had been 
instrumental in murdering my wife and ruining 
my home I Why ? I do not know I Had I 
preferred for you a less pleasant death than 
drowning, I could have taken you ashore and 
killed you. Yet—I did not, because it is not 
in my nature to destroy anything. I have 
never in my life killed an animal, nor, to my 
knowledge, an insect; I love all life—animal 
life and vegetable life—everything that breathes 
and grows. Yet I am a Huguenot!—one of 




IN FRANCE 


117 


the race you hate and despise and are paid to 
exterminate. Assassin, I have spared you. Be 
not ungenerous. Spare others.” 

The captain was moved. Still speechless, he 
seized the minister’s hands and wrung them. 
And from that hour to the day of his death— 
which was not for many years afterwards—the 
Huguenots had no truer friend than Andr6 
Bonivon. 


Werwolves and Witches 

Other instances of werwolves of a benignant 
nature are to be found in the “ Bisclaveret ” 
in Marie de France’s poem, composed in 1200 
A.D. ; and in the hero of “William and the Wer¬ 
wolf” (translated from the French about 1350). 

To inflict the evil property of werwolfery 
upon those against whom they—or some other 
—bore a grudge was, in the Middle Ages, a 
method of revenge frequently resorted to by 
witches ; and countless knights and ladies were 
thus victimized. Nor were such practices con¬ 
fined to ancient times; for as late as the 
eighteenth century a case of this kind of 
witchcraft is reported to have happened in the 
vicinity of Blois. 

In a village some three miles from Blois, on 
the outskirts of a forest, dwelt an innkeeper 
called Antonio Cellini, who, as the name 
suggests, was of Italian origin. Antonio had 


118 


WERWOLVES 


only one child, Beatrice, a very pretty girl, who 
at the time of this story was about nineteen 
years of age. As might be expected, Beatrice 
had many admirers ; but none were so passion¬ 
ately attached to her as Herbert Foyer, a hand¬ 
some youth, and one Henri Sangfeu, an ex¬ 
tremely plain youth. Beatrice—and one can 
scarcely blame her for it—preferred Herbert, 
and with the whole-hearted approval of her 
father consented to marry him. Sangfeu was 
not unnaturally upset; but, in all probability, he 
would have eventually resigned himself to the 
inevitable, had it not been for a village wag, 
who in an idle moment wrote a poem and 
entitled it 

“ Sansfeu the Ugly; or^ Love Unrequited^' 

The poem, which was illustrated with several 
clever caricatures of the unfortunate Henri and 
contained much caustic wit, took like wildfire 
in the village; and Henri, in consequence, had 
a very bad time. Eventually it was shown to 
Beatrice, and it was then that the climax was 
reached. Although Henri was present at the 
moment, unable to restrain herself, she went 
into peals of laughter at the drawings, saying 
over and over again : “ How like him—how 
very like ! His nose to a nicety! It is cer¬ 
tainly correct to style him Sansfeu—for no one 
could call him Sansnez ! ” 


IN FRANCE 


119 


Her mirth was infectious; every one joined 
in ; only Henri slunk away, crimson with rage 
and mortification. He hated Beatrice now as 
much as he had loved her before; and he 
thirsted only for revenge. 

Some distance from the village and in the 
heart of the forest lived an old woman known 
as Mere Maxim, who was said to be a witch, 
and, therefore, shunned by every one. All sorts 
of unsavoury stories were told of her, and she 
was held responsible for several outbreaks of 
epidemics—hitherto unknown in the neighbour¬ 
hood—many accidents, and more than one 
death. 

The spot where she lived was carefully 
avoided. Those who ventured far in the 
forest after nightfall either never came back 
at all or returned half imbecile with terror, 
and afterwards poured out to their affrighted 
friends incoherent stories of the strange lights 
and terrible forms they had encountered, 
moving about amid the trees. Up to the 
present Henri had been just as scared by 
these tales as the rest of the villagers ; but 
so intense was his longing for revenge that he 
at length resolved to visit Mere Maxim and 
solicit her assistance. Choosing a morning 
when the sun was shining brightly, he screwed 
up his courage, and after many bad scares 
finally succeeded in reaching her dwelling— 


120 


WERWOLVES 


or, I might say, her shanty, for by a more 
appropriate term than the latter such a queer¬ 
looking untidy habitation could not be de¬ 
scribed. To his astonishment Mere Maxim 
was by no means so unprepossessing as he had 
imagined. On the contrary, she was more 
than passably good-looking, with black hair, 
rosy cheeks, and exceedingly white teeth. 
What he did not altogether like were her eyes 
—which, though large and well shaped, had in 
them an occasional glitter—and her hands, 
which, though remarkably white and slender, 
had very long and curved nails, that to his 
mind suggested all sorts of unpleasant ideas. 
She was becomingly dressed in brown—brown 
woolly garments, with a brown fur cap, brown 
stockings, and brown shoes ornamented with 
very bright silver buckles. Altogether she 
was decidedly chic ; and if a little incongruous 
in her surroundings, such Incongruity only made 
her the more alluring; and as far as Henri 
was concerned rather added to her charms. 

At all events, he needed no second invitation 
to seat himself by her side in the chimney- 
corner, and his heart thumped as it had never 
thumped before when she encouraged him to 
put his arm round her waist and kiss her. It 
was the first time a woman had ever suffered 
him to kiss her without violent protestations 
and avowals of disgust. 


IN FRANCE 


121 


“ You are not very handsome, it is true,” 
M^re Maxim remarked, “ but you are fat—and 
I like fat young men,” and she pinched his 
cheeks playfully and patted his hands. “ Are 
you sure no one knows you have come to see 
me ? ” she asked. 

“ Certain ! ” Henri replied ; “ I haven’t con¬ 
fided in a soul; I haven’t even so much as 
dropped a hint that I intended seeing you.” 

“ That is good ! ” Mere Maxim said. “ Tell 
no one, otherwise I shall not be able to help 
you. Also, on no account let the girl 
Beatrice think you bear her animosity. Be 
civil and friendly to her whenever you meet; 
then give her, as a wedding present, this belt 
and box of bonbons.” So saying, she handed 
him a beautiful belt composed of the skin of 
some wild animal and fastened with a gold 
buckle, and a box of delicious pink and white 
sugarplums. “ Do not give her these things 
till the marriage eve,” she added, “and directly 
you have given them come and see me—always 
observing the greatest secrecy.” She then 
kissed him, and he went away brimming over 
with passion for her, and longing feverishly for 
the hour to arrive when he could be with her 
again. 

All day and all night he thought of her— 
of her gay and sparkling beauty, of her kisses 
and caresses, and the delightful coolness of her 


122 


WERWOLVES 


thin and supple hands. His mad infatuation 
for her made him oblivious to the taunts and 
jeers of the villagers, who seldom saw him 
without making ribald allusion to the poem. 

“ There goes Sansfeu! alias Monsieur 
Grosnez ! ” they called out. “ Why don’t you 
cut off your nose for a present to made¬ 
moiselle.^ She would then have no need to 
buy a kitchen poker. Ha ! ha ! ha ! ” But 
their coarse wit fell flat. Henri hardly heard 
it—all his thoughts, his burning love, his un¬ 
quenchable passion, were centred in Mere 
Maxim : in spirit he was with her, alone with 
her, in the innermost recesses of the grim, 
silent forest. 

The marriage eve came ; he handed Beatrice 
the presents, and ere she had time to thank 
him—for the magnificence of the belt rendered 
her momentarily speechless—he had flown from 
the house, and was hurrying as fast as his legs 
could carry him to his tryst. The shadows of 
night were already on the forest when he 
entered it; and the silence and solitude of the 
place, the indistinct images of the trees, and 
their dismal sighing, that seemed to foretell 
a storm, all combined to disturb his fancy and 
raise strange spectres in his imagination. The 
shrill hooting of an owl, as it rustled overhead, 
caused him an unprecedented shock, and the 
great rush of blood to his head made him 


IN FRANCE 


123 


stagger and clutch hold of the nearest object 
for support. He had barely recovered from 
this alarm when his eyes almost started out of 
their sockets with fright as he caught sight of a 
queer shape gliding silently from tree to tree ; 
and shortly afterwards he was again terrified— 
this time by a pale face, whether of a human 
being or animal he could not say, peering 
down at him from the gnarled and fantastic 
branches of a gigantic oak. He was now so 
frightened that he ran, and queer—indefinably 
queer footsteps ran after him, and followed 
him persistently until he reached the shanty, 
when he heard them turn and leap lightly 
away. 

On this occasion, the occurrence of Henri s 
second visit. Mere Maxim was more captiva¬ 
ting than ever. She was dressed with wonderful 
effect all in white. She wore sparkling jewels 
at her throat and waist, buckles of burnished 
gold on her shoes; her teeth flashed like 
polished ivory, and her nails like agates. 
Henri was enraptured. He fell on his knees 
before her, he caught her hands and covered 
them with kisses. 

“ How nice you look to-day, my sweetheart,” 
she said; “and how fat! It does my heart 
good to see you. Come in, and sit close to 
me, and tell me how you have fared.” 

She led him in, and after locking and barring 


124 


WERWOLVES 


the door, conducted him to the chimney-corner. 
And there he lay in her arms. She fondled 
him ; she pressed her lips on his, and gleefully 
felt his cheeks and arms. And after a time, 
when, intoxicated with the joy of it all, he lay 
still and quiet, wishing only to remain like that 
for eternity, she stooped down, and, fetching a 
knot of cord from under the seat, began laugh¬ 
ingly to bind his hands and feet. And at each 
turn and twist of the rope she laughed the 
louder. And when she had finished binding 
his arms and legs she made him lie on his 
back, and lashed him so tightly to the seat 
that, had he possessed the strength of six men, 
he could not have freed himself. 

Then she sat beside him, and moving aside 
the clothes that covered his chest and throat, 
said :— 

“ By this time Beatrice—pretty Beatrice, 
vain and sensual Beatrice, the Beatrice you 
once loved and admired so much—will have 
worn the belt, will have eaten the sweets. She 
is now a werwolf. Every night at twelve 
o’clock she will creep out of bed and glide 
about the house and village in search of human 
prey, some bonny babe, or weak, defenceless 
woman, but always some one fat, tender, and 
juicy—some one like you.” And bending low 
over him, she bared her teeth, and dug her cruel 
nails deep into his flesh. A flame from the 


IN FRANCE 


125 


wood fire suddenly shot up. It flickered oddly 
on the figure of Mere Maxim—so oddly that 
Henri received a shock. He realized with an 
awful thrill that the face into which he peered 
was no longer that of a human being ; it was— 
but he could no longer think—he could only 
gaze. 



CHAPTER VIII 

WERWOLVES AND VAMPIRES AND 
GHOULS 

T hroughout the Middle Ages, 

and even in the seventeenth century, 
trials for lycanthropy were of common 
occurrence in France. Among the most 
famous were those of the Grandillon family 
in the Jura, in 1598; that of the tailor of 
Chilons; of Roulet, in Angers; of Gilles 
Gamier, in Dole, in 1573; and of Jean 
Gamier, at Bordeaux, in 1603. The last 
case was, perhaps, the most remarkable of 
all. Gamier, who was only fourteen years of 
age, was employed in looking after cattle. 
He was a handsome lad, with dark, flashing 
eyes and very white teeth. As soon as it was 
time for the metamorphosis to take place he 
used to go into some lonely spot, and then, in 
the guise of a wolf, return, and run to earth 
isolated women and children. One of his 

favourite haunts was a thicket close to a pool 
126 


WERWOLVES, VAMPIRES, GHOULS 127 


of water. Here he used to lie and watch for 
hours at a time. Once he surprised two girls 
bathing. One escaped, and fled home naked, 
but the other he flung on the ground, and 
having shaken her into submission, devoured a 
portion of her one day, and the rest of her the 
next. He confessed to having eaten over 
fifty children. Nor did he always confine 
himself to attacking the solitary few and 
defenceless; for on several occasions, when 
hard pressed by hunger, he assailed a whole 
crowd, and was once severely handled by a 
pack of young girls who successfully drove him 
off with sharply pointed stakes. Far from 
wishing to conceal his guilt, Jean Gamier was 
most eager to tell everything, and to a court 
thronged with eager, attentive people, he related 
in the most graphic manner possible his 
sanguinary experiences. One old woman, he 
said, whom he found alone in a cottage, 
showed extraordinary agility in trying to 
escape. She raced round tables, clambered 
over chairs, crawled under a bed, and finally 
hid in a cupboard and held the door so fast 
that he had to exert all his force to open 
it. “And then,” he added, “in spite of all 
my trouble she proved to be as tough as 

leather-” and he made a grimace that 

provoked much laughter. 

He complained bitterly of one child. “It 



128 


WERWOLVES 


made such a dreadful noise,” he said, ‘‘when I 
lifted it out of its crib, and when I got ready 
for my first bite it shrieked so loud it almost 
deafened me.” 

The name Grenier, like that of Gamier, was 
closely associated with lycanthropy, and in 
Blois, where there were more instances of 
lycanthropy than in any other part of France, 
every one called Grdnier or Gamier was set 
down as a werwolf. 

Amongst the Vaudois lycanthropy was also 
widely prevalent, and many of these werwolves 
were brought to trial and executed. 

The Case of Sergeant Bertrand 

The case of Sergeant Bertrand, which is the 
last authenticated case of this kind, occurred in 
1847, when, on the loth of July, an investi¬ 
gation was held before a military council 
presided over by Colonel Manselon. For 
some months the cemeteries in and around 
Paris had been the scenes of frightful viola¬ 
tions, the culprits (or culprit), in some extra¬ 
ordinary manner, eluding every attempt made 
to ensnare them. At one time the custodians 
of the cemeteries were suspected, then the 
local police, and for a brief space suspicion 
fell even on the relations of the dead. The 
first burial-place to be so mysteriously visited, 
was the Cemetery of Pere Lachaise. Here, 


WEKWOLVES, VAMPIRES, GHOULS 129 


at night, those in charge declared they saw a 
strange form, partly human and partly animal, 
glide about from tomb to tomb. Try how they 
would they could not catch it—it always 
vanished—vanished just like a phantom 
directly they came up to it ; and the dogs 
when urged to seize it would only bark and 
howl, and show indications of the most abject 
terror. 

Always when morning broke the ravages of 
this unsavoury visitant were only too plainly 
visible—graves had been dug up, coffins burst 
open, and the contents nibbled, and gnawed, 
and scattered all over the ground. Expert 
medical opinion was sought, but with no fresh 
result. The doctors, too, were agreed that the 
mutilations of the dead were produced by the 
bites of what certainly seemed to be human 
teeth. 

The sensation caused by this announcement 
was without parallel; and one and all, old and 
young, rich and poor, were wanting to know 
whatever sort of being it could be that 
possessed so foul an appetite. The watch 
was doubled; all to no purpose. A young 
soldier was arrested, but on declaring he had 
merely entered the cemetery to meet a friend, 
and exhibiting no evidences of guilt, was let go. 

At length the violation ceased in Pere La- 
chaise and broke out elsewhere. A little girl, 


130 


WERWOLVES 


greatly beloved by her relatives and friends, 
died, and a big concourse of people attended 
the funeral. On the following morning, to the 
intense indignation of every one, the grave was 
discovered dug up, the coffin forced open, and 
the body half eaten. In its wild fury at such 
an unheard-of atrocity. the public called loudly 
for the culprit. The father of the dead girl 
was first of all arrested, but his innocence being 
quickly established, he was set free. Every 
means was then taken to guard against any 
recurrence, but in spite of all precautions the 
same thing happened again shortly afterwards; 
and happened repeatedly. The fact that the 
cemetery was surrounded by very high walls, 
and that iron gates, which were always kept 
shut, formed the only legitimate entrance, 
added to the mystery, and made it seem 
impossible that any creature of solid flesh and 
blood could be responsible for the outrages. 

Having observed that at one place, in par¬ 
ticular, the wall, though nearly ten feet high, 
showed signs of having been frequently scaled, 
an old army officer set a trap there, consisting 
of a wire connected with an explosive, which 
was so arranged that no one could climb over 
the wall without treading on the wire and 
causing an explosion. 

A strong posse of detectives kept watch, and 
at midnight a loud report was heard. The 


WEEWOLVES, VAMPIEES, GHOULS 131 


detectives were not, however, as quick as their 
quarry. They saw a man, or what they took 
to be a man, and fired at him, but he was gone 
like a flash of lightning, scaling the wall with 
the agility of a monkey. Finding a trail of 
blood, however, and pieces of torn uniform 
accompanying the bloodstains, they concluded 
that the enemy was wounded, and that the 
marauder was, moreover, a soldier. 

Still, it is doubtful whether his identity 
would have been proved, had not one of the 
grave-diggers of the cemetery chanced to over¬ 
hear some sappers of the 74th Regiment 
remark that on the preceding night one of 
their comrades—a sergeant—had been con¬ 
veyed to the military hospital of Val de Grace 
badly wounded. The matter was at once 
inquired into, and the wounded soldier. Ser¬ 
geant Bertrand, was found to be the author of 
the long series of hideous violations. Bertrand 
freely confessed his guilt, declaring that he 
was driven to it against his own will by some 
external force he could not define, and which 
allowed him no peace. He had, he said, in 
one night exhumed and bitten as many as 
fifteen bodies. He employed no implements, 
but tore up the soil after the manner of a wild 
beast, paying no heed to the bruising and 
laceration of his hands so long as he could get 
at the dead. He could not describe what his 


132 


WERWOLVES 


sensations were like when he w’as thus 
occupied; he only knew that he was not 
himself but some ravenous, ferocious animal. 
He added, that after these nocturnal expeditions 
he invariably fell into a profound sleep, often 
before he could get home, and that always, 
during that sleep, he was conscious of under¬ 
going peculiar metamorphosis. When interro¬ 
gated, he informed the court of inquiry that, as 
a child, he preferred the company of all kinds 
of animals to that of his fellow creatures, and 
that in order to get in close touch with his 
four-footed friends he used to frequent the 
most solitary and out-of-the-way places— 
moors, woods, and deserts. He said that it 
was immediately after one of these excursions 
that he first experienced the sensation of 
undergoing some great change in his sleep, 
and that the following evening, when passing 
close to a cemetery where the grave-diggers 
were covering a body that had just been 
interred, yielding to a sudden impulse, he 
crept in and watched them. A sharp shower 
of rain interrupting their labours, they went 
away, leaving their task unfinished. “ At the 
sight of the coffin,” Bertrand said, “ horrible 
desires seized me; my head throbbed, my 
heart palpitated, and had it not been for the 
timely arrival of friends I should have then 
and there yielded to my inclinations. From 





WERWOLVES, VAMPIRES, GHOULS 133 


that time forth I was never free—these terrible 
cravings invariably came on directly after 
sunset.” 

Medical men who examined Bertram unani¬ 
mously gave it as their opinion that he was 
sane, and could only account for his extra¬ 
ordinary nocturnal actions by the supposition 
that he must be the victim of some strange 
monomania. His companions, with whom he 
was most popular, all testified to his amiability 
and lovable disposition. In the end he was 
sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, and after 
his release was never again heard of. There 
can, I think, be little doubt, from what he 
: himself said, that he was in reality a werwolf. 

His preference for the society of animals and 
I love of isolated regions ; his sudden fallings 
asleep and sensations of undergoing metamor¬ 
phosis, though that metamorphosis was 
spiritual and metaphysical only, which is very 
often the case, all help to substantiate that 
belief. 

Vampirism and Lycanthropy 

It has been asserted that Bertrand was a 
vampire ; but there are absolutely no grounds 
for associating him with vampirism. A vampire 
is an Elemental that under certain conditions 
inhabits a dead body, whether human or other¬ 
wise ; and, thus incarcerated, comes out of a 


134 


WERWOLVES 


grave at night to suck the blood of a living 
person. It never touches the dead. 

A werwolf has already been defined. It has 
an existence entirely separate from the vampire. 
The werwolf feeds on both the living and dead, 
which it bites and mangles after the nature of 
all beasts of prey. 

Vampirism is infectious; every one who has 
been sucked by a vampire, on physical dissolu¬ 
tion, becomes a vampire, and remains one until 
his corpse is destroyed in a certain prescribed 
manner. Lycanthropy is not infectious. 

There are many well-authenticated cases of 
vampirism in France and Germany. In a 
newspaper published in the reign of Louis XV 
there appeared an announcement to the efifect 
that Arnold Paul, a native of Madveiga, being 
crushed to death by a wagon and buried, had 
since become a vampire, and that he had been 
previously bitten by one. The authorities 
being informed of the terror his visits were 
occasioning, and several people having died 
with all the symptoms of vampirism, his grave 
was opened ; and although he had been dead 
forty days his body was like that of a very 
full-blooded, living man. 

Following the mode of exorcism traditionally 
observed on such occasions, a stake was driven 
into the corpse, whereupon it uttered a frightful 
cry—half human and half animal ; after which 


WERWOLVES, VAMPIRES, GHOULS 135 


its head was cut off, and trunk and head burned. 
Four other bodies which had died from the 
consequences of the bites, and which were 
found in the same perfectly healthy condition, 
were served in a similar manner; and it was 
hoped these vigorous measures would end the 
mischief. But no such thing ; cases of deaths 
from the same cause— i.e., loss of blood—still 
continued, and five years afterwards became so 
rife that the authorities were compelled to take 
the matter up for the second time. On this 
occasion the graves of many people, of all ages 
and both sexes, were opened, and the bodies 
of all those suspected of plaguing the living 
by their nocturnal visits were found in the 
vampire state—full almost to overflowing with 
blood, and free from every symptom of death. 
On their being served in the same manner 
as the corpse of Arnold Paul the epidemic of 
vampirism ceased, and no more cases of it have 
since been reported as occurring in that district. 
A rumour of these proceedings reaching the 
ears of Louis XV, he at once ordered his 
Minister at Vienna to report upon them. This 
was done. The documents forwarded to the 
King (and which are still in existence) give 
a detailed account of all the occurrences to 
which I have referred. They bear the date 
of June 7, 1732, and are signed and witnessed 
by three surgeons and several other persons. 


136 


WERWOLVES 


The facts, which are indubitable, point to no 
other satisfactory explanation saving that of 
vampirism—an explanation that finds ample 
corroboration in thousands of like cases 
reported, at one time or another, in every 
country in Eastern Europe. 

Ghoulism and Lycanthropy 

Sergeant Bertrand has also been declared 
a ghoul. Ghoulism bears a somewhat closer 
resemblance than vampirism to lycanthropy. 
A ghoul is an Elemental that visits any place 
where human or animal remains have been 
interred. It digs them up and bites them, 
showing a keen liking for brains, which it 
sucks in the same manner as a vampire sucks 
blood. 

Ghouls either remain in spirit form or steal 
the bodies of living beings—living beings only 
—either human or animal. They can only do 
this when the spirit of the living person, during 
sleep (either natural or induced hypnotically), 
is separated from the material body ; or, in 
other words, when the spirit is projected. The 
ghoul then pounces on the physical body, and, 
often refusing to restore it to its rightful owner, 
the latter is compelled to roam about as a 
phantasm for just so long a time as the ghoul 
chooses to inhabit the body it has stolen. 


WERWOLVES, VAMPIRES, GHOULS 137 


The Case of Constance Armande, Ghoul 

A propos of ghouls, the following incident 
was related to me as having occurred recently 
in Brittany. A young girl named Constance 
Armande, in a good station of life, much against 
the wishes of her family, took up spiritualism 
and constantly attended stances. At these 
stances she witnessed all sorts of phenomena— 
some in all probability produced by mere 
trickery on the part of the medium or a 
confederate, whilst others were, without doubt, 
the manifestations of bona fide spirits—earth- 
bound phantasms of the lowest and most 
undesirable order—murderers, lunatics, Vice 
Elementals, and ghouls. It is most unwise to 
risk coming in contact with such spirits, for 
when they have once made your acquaintance 
they will attach themselves to you, and are got 
rid of only with the greatest difficulty. They 
were most unremitting in their persecution of 
Constance Armande; they followed her home, 
and were always rapping on the walls of her 
room and disturbing and annoying her. In 
short, she got no peace, either asleep or awake. 
In the night she would often wake up screaming, 
and in an agony of mind rush into her parents’ 
room and implore their protection, declaring 
she had dreamed in the most vivid manner 
possible that frightful-looking creatures, too 


138 


WERWOLVES 


awful for her to describe, were trying to pre¬ 
vent her awaking in order to keep her with 
them always. She told a spiritualist, and he 
informed her that such dreams were not in 
reality dreams at all, but projections—that she 
had, at stances, acquired the power of projec¬ 
tion ; and, having no control over that power, 
she projected herself unconsciously, the pro¬ 
jection almost always taking place in her sleep. 

A medical expert was also consulted, and in 
accordance with his advice Constance Armande 
went to the seaside and resorted to every kind 
of pleasure—balls, concerts, and theatres. 
But the annoyances still continued, and she 
was seldom permitted to rest a whole night 
without being disturbed in a most harrowing 
manner. 

Being a really beautiful girl, she had countless 
admirers, and eventually she became engaged 
to Alphonse Mabane, the only son of a very 
wealthy widow. 

Shortly before the day fixed for their 
marriage Madame Mabane was seized with a fit 
of apoplexy and died. Every one, especially 
Constance Armande, was overwhelmed with 
grief, whilst preparations were made for a most 
impressive funeral. 

On the afternoon of the day preceding that 
on which the funeral was to take place 
Constance, complaining of a bad headache. 


WERWOLVES, VAMPIRES, GHOULS 139 


went to lie down on her bed, and two hours 
later strange footsteps were heard coming out 
of her room and bounding down the stairs. 
Wondering who it could be, Madame Armande 
ran to look, and was astonished beyond 
measure to see Constance—but a Constance 
she hardly knew—a Constance with the glitter 
of a ferocious beast in her eyes, and a grim, 
savage expression in the corners of her mouth. 
She did not appear to notice her mother, but 
passed her by with a light, stealthy tread, 
utterly unlike her usual walk, crossed the hall, 
and went out at the front door. Madame 
Armande was too startled to try and intercept 
her, or even to make any remark, and returned 
to the drawing-room greatly agitated. As 
hour after hour passed and Constance did not 
come home, her alarm increased, and she 
mentioned the incident to her husband, who 
caused immediate inquiries to be made. Just 
about the hour the family usually retired to 
rest there came a violent ring at the front-door 
bell. It was Alphonse Mabane, pale and 
ghastly. 

“Have you found her?” Monsieur and 
Madame Armande cried, catching hold of 
him in their agitation, and dragging him into 
the hall. 

Alphonse nodded. “ Let me sit down a 
moment first,” he gasped. “It will give me 



140 


WERWOLVES 


time to collect my senses. My nerves are 
all to pieces! ” 

He sank into a chair, and, burying his face 
in his hands, shook convulsively. Monsieur 
and Madame Armande stood and watched him in 
agonized silence. After some minutes—to the 
Armandes it seemed an eternity—spent in this 
fashion, Alphonse raised his head. “Your 
servant,” he said, “came to my house at nine 
o’clock and asked if Mademoiselle Constance 
was with me. I said ‘ No,’ that I had not seen 
her all day, and was much alarmed when I was 
informed that she had left home early in the 
afternoon and had not yet returned. I said I 
would join in the search for her, and was in my 
bedroom putting on my overcoat, when there 
came a tap at my door, and Jacques, my valet, 
with a face as white as a sheet, begged me to 
go with him upstairs. He led me to the door 
of my mother’s room, where she lay in her 
coffin, not yet screwed down. ‘ Hark ! ’ he 
whispered, touching me on the sleeve, ‘ do 
you hear that ? ’ 

“ I listened, and from the interior of the 
room came a curious noise like munching— 
a steady gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. ‘ I heard it just 
now,’ he whispered, * when I was going to shut 
the landing window—and other sounds, too. 
H ush! ’ 

“ I held my breath, and heard distinctly the 
swishing and rustling of a dress. 


WERWOLVES, VAMPIRES, GHOULS 141 


“ ‘ Have you been in ? ’ I asked. 

“ He shook his head. ‘ I daren’t,' he whis¬ 
pered. ‘ I wouldn’t go in by myself if you 
were to offer me a million pounds,’ and he 
trembled so violently that he had to lean 
against me for support. 

“ A great terror then seized me, and bidding 
Jacques follow, I crept downstairs and sum¬ 
moned the rest of the servants. Armed with 
sticks and lights, we then went in a body to my 
mother’s room, and throwing open the door, 
rushed in. 

“ The lid of the coffin was off, the corpse was 
lying huddled up on the floor, and crouching 
over it was Constance. For God’s sake don’t 
ask me to describe more—the sounds we heard 
explained everything. When she saw us she 
emitted a series of savage snarls, sprang at one 
of the maids, scratched her in the face, and 
before we could stop her, flew downstairs and 
out into the street. As soon as our shocked 
senses had sufficiently recovered we started off 
in pursuit, but have not been able to find the 
slightest trace of her.” 

At the conclusion of Monsieur Mabane’s 
story the search was continued. The police 
were summoned, and a general hue and cry 
raised, with the result that Constance was 
eventually found in a cemetery digging fran¬ 
tically at a newly made grave. 


142 


WERWOLVES 


At last brought to bay in the chase that en¬ 
sued, fortunately for her and for all concerned, 
she plunged into a river, was swept away by 
the current, and drowned. 

This case of Constance Armande seems to 
me to be clearly a case of ghoulism. What 
the spiritualist had told her was correct—she 
had projected herself unconsciously, and the 
hideous things she imagined were phantoms 
in a dream were Elementals—ghouls—her pro¬ 
jected spirit encountered on the superphysical 
plane. 

After sundry efforts to steal her body when 
she was thus separated from it, one of them had 
at length succeeded, and, incarcerated in her 
beautiful frame, had hastened to .satisfy its 
craving for human carrion. 


CHAPTER IX 
WERWOLVES IN GERMANY 
O country in the world is richer in 



stories of everything appertaining to 


^ ^ the supernatural than Germany. The 

Rhine is the favourite river of nymphs and 
sirens, to whose irresistible and fatal fascina¬ 
tions so many men have fallen victims. Along 
its shores are countless haunted castles, in its 
woods innumerable terrifying phantoms. 

The werwolf, however, seems to have con¬ 
fined itself almost entirely to the Harz Moun¬ 
tains, where it was formerly most common and 
more dreaded than any other visitant from the 
Unknown, But of these werwolves many of the 
best authenticated cases have been told so often, 
that it is difficult for me to alight on any that is 
not already well known. Perhaps the following, 
though as striking as any, may be new to at 
least a few of my readers. 


144 


WERWOLVES 


The Case of Herr Hellen and the 
Werwolves of the Harz Mountains 

Two gentlemen, named respectively Hellen 
and Schiller, were on a walking tour in the 
Harz Mountains, in the early summer of the 
year 1840 , when Schiller, slipping down, sprained 
his ankle and was-unable to go on. They were 
some miles from any village, in the centre of 
an extensive forest, and it was beginning to 
get dark. 

“ Leave me here,” cried the injured man to 
his friend, “ while you see if you can discover 
any habitation. I have been told these woods 
are full of charcoal-burners’ and wood-cutters’ 
huts, so that if you walk straight ahead for 
a mile or two, you are very likely to come 
across one. Do go, there’s a good fellow, 
and if you are too tired to return yourself, 
send some one to carry me.” 

Hellen did not like leaving his comrade in 
such a dreary spot, alone and helpless, but 
as Schiller was persistent he at length yielded, 
and stepping briskly out, advanced along the 
track that had brought them hither. Once or 
twice he halted, fancying he heard voices, and 
several times his heart pulsated wildly at 
what he took to be the cry of a wolf—for 
neither Schiller nor he had no weapons ex¬ 
cepting sheath-knives. At last he came to an 


IN GERMANY 


145 


open spot hedged in on all sides by gloomy 
pines, the shadows from which were beginning 
to fall thick and fast athwart the vivid green¬ 
sward. It was one of those places—they are 
to be found in pretty nearly every country— 
i studiously avoided by local woodsmen as the 
haunt of all manner of evil influences. Hellen 
recognized it as such the moment he saw it, 
but as it lay right across his path, and time 
k was pressing, he had no alternative but to 
I keep boldly on. He was half-way across the 
I spot when he was startled by a groan, and 
^ looking in the direction of the sound, he saw 
; a man seated on the ground endeavouring to 
i bandage his hand. Wondering why he had 
I not observed him before, but thankful to meet 
j some one at last, Hellen went up to him and 
^ asked what was the matter. 

“ I’ve broken my wrist,” the man replied. “ I 
■ was gathering sticks for my fire to-morrow when 
I heard the howl of a wolf, and in my anxiety 
: to escape a conflict with the brute I climbed 
i this tree. As I descended one of the branches 
gave way, and I fell down with all my weight 
on my right arm. Will you see if you can bind 
. it for me ? I’m a bit awkward with my left 
hand.” 

“ I will do my best,” Hellen said, and kneel¬ 
ing beside the man, he took off the bandages 
and wrapped them round again. “ There,” he 




146 


WERWOLVES 


exclaimed, “ I think that is better—at least it is 
the best I can do.” 

The stranger was now most profuse in his 
thanks, and when Hellen informed him of 
Schiller’s condition, at once cried out, “ You 
must both come to my cottage ; it is only a 
short distance from here. Let us hasten thither 
now, and my daughter, who is very strong, 
shall go back with you and help you carry your 
friend. We are not rich, but we can make you 
both fairly comfortable, and all we have shall 
be at your disposal. But I wonder if you know 
what you have incurred by coming to this spot 
at this hour ? ” 

“ Why, no,” Hellen said, laughing. 
“ What ? ” 

“ The gratification of two wishes—the first 
two wishes you make ! Of course, you will 
say it is all humbug, but, believe me, very queer 
things do happen in this forest. I have experi¬ 
enced them myself.” 

“Well!” Hellen replied, laughing more 
heartily than before, “ if I wish anything at all 
it is that my wife were here to see how beauti¬ 
fully I have bandaged your wrist.” 

“ Where is your wife ? ” the stranger 
inquired. 

“At Frankfort, most likely taking a final 
peep at the children in bed before retiring to 
rest herself!” Hellen said, still laughing. 


IN GERMANY 


147 


‘'Then you have children!” the stranger 
ejaculated, evidently interested. 

“Yes, three—all girls—and such bonny girls, 
too. Marcella, Christina, and Fredericka. I 
wish I had them here for you to see.” 

“ I should much like to see them, certainly,” 
the stranger said. “ And now you have told 
me so much of interest about yourself, let me 
tell you something of my own history in ex¬ 
change. My name is Wilfred Gaverstein. I 
am an artist by profession, and have come to 
live here during the summer months in order 
to paint nature—nature as it really is—in all 
its varying moods. Nature is my only god—I 
adore it. I don’t believe in souls. 1 love the 
trees and flowers and shrubs, the rivulets, the 
fountains, the birds and insects.” 

“Everything but the wolves!” Hellen re¬ 
marked jocularly. Hardly, however, had he 
spoken these words before he had reason to 
alter his tone. “ Great heavens ! do you hear 
that?” he cried. “There is no mistake about 
it this time. It is a wolf, or may I never live 
to hear one again.” 

“You are right, friend,” Wilfred said. “ It 
is a wolf, and not very far away, either. Come, 
we must be quick,” and thrusting his arm 
through that of Hellen, he hurried him along. 
After some minutes’ fast walking they came in 
sight of a neatly thatched whitewashed cottage. 


148 


WERWOLVES 


at the entrance to which two women and several 
children were collected. “ That’s my home,” 
Wilfred said. 

“ And that’s my wife ! ” Hellen cried, rubbing 
his eyes to make sure he was not dreaming. 
“ God in heaven, what’s the meaning of it all ? 
My wife and children—all three of them ! Am 
I mad ? ” 

“It is merely the answer to your wishes,” 
Wilfred rejoined calmly. “ See, they recognize 
you and are waving.” 

As one in a sleep Hellen now staggered for¬ 
ward, and was soon in the midst of his family, 
who, rushing up to him, implored him to explain 
what had happened, and how on earth they 
came to be there. 

“ I am just as much at sea as you are,” 
Hellen said, feeling them each in turn to make 
sure it was really they. “It’s an insoluble 
mystery to me.” 

“And to us, too,” they all cried. “A few 
minutes ago we were in our beds in Frankfort, 
and then suddenly we found ourselves here— 
here in this dreadful looking forest. Oh, take 
us away, take us home, do! ” 

Hellen was in despair. It was all like a 
hideous nightmare to him. What was he 
to do ? 

“You must be my guests for to-night, at all 
events,” Wilfred said ; “ and in the morning 


IN GERMANY 


149 


we will discuss what is to be done. Fortunately 
we have enough room to accommodate you all. 
There is food in abundance. Let me introduce 
you to my daughter Marguerite,” and the next 
moment Hellen found himself shaking hands 
with a girl of about twenty years of age. She 
was clad in what appeared to be a travelling 
dress, deeply bordered with white fur, and wore 
a most becoming cap of white ermine. Her 
feet were shod in long, pointed, and very 
elegant buckskin shoes, adorned with bright 
silver buckles. Her hair, which was yellow 
and glossy, was parted down the middle, and 
waved in a most becoming fashion low over 
the forehead and ears; and her features—at 
least so Hellen thought—were very beautiful. 
Her mouth, though a trifle large, had very 
daintily cut lips, and was furnished with un¬ 
usually white and even teeth. But there was a 
peculiar furtive expression in her eyes, which were 
of a very pretty shape and colour, that aroused 
Hellen’s curiosity, and made him scrutinize her 
carefully. Her hands were noticeably long and 
slender, with tapering fingers and long, almond- 
shaped, rosy nails, that glittered each time they 
caught the rays of the fast fading sunlight. 
Hellen’s first impression of her was that she 
was marvellously beautiful, but that there was 
a something about her that he did not under¬ 
stand—a something he had never seen in any- 


150 


WERWOLVES 


one before, a something that in an ugly woman 
might have put him on his guard, but in this 
face of such surpassing beauty a something he 
seemed only too ready to ignore. Hellen was 
a good, and up to the present, certainly, a 
faithful husband, but he was only a man after 
all, and the more he looked at the girl the 
more he admired her. 

At a word from Wilfred, Marguerite smilingly 
led the way indoors, and showed the guests two 
bedrooms, small but exquisitely clean. There 
was a double bed in one, and two single ones 
in the other. The bed-linen was of the very 
finest material, and white as snow. 

“I think,” Wilfred remarked, “two of the 
girls can squeeze in one bed—they are 
neither of them very big—though it does my 
heart good to see them so bonny.” 

“And mine, too,” Marguerite joined in, 
patting the three children on the cheeks in 
turn, and drawing them to her and caressing 
them. 

Mrs. Hellen, still dazed, and apparently hardly 
realizing what was happening, stammered out 
her thanks, and the party then descended to the 
kitchen to partake of a substantial supper that 
was speedily prepared for them. 

“ Had you not better go and look for your 
friend now ? ” Wilfred observed, just as Hellen 
was about to seat himself beside his wife and 


IN GERMANY 


151 


children. Marguerite will go with you, and 
on your return the three of you can have your 
meal in here after the children have gone 
to bed.” 

Hellen readily assented, and kissing his wife 
and little ones, who tearfully implored him not 
to be gone long, set out, accompanied by 
Marguerite. 

At each step they took, Marguerite’s beauty 
became more irresistible. The soft rays of 
the moon falling directly on her features en¬ 
hanced their loveliness, and Hellen could not 
keep his eyes off her. The ominous cry of 
a night bird startled her; she edged timidly 
up to him ; and he had to exert all his self- 
control, so eager was he to clasp her to him. 
In a strained, unnatural manner he kept up 
a flow of small-talk, eliciting the information 
that she was an art student, and that she had 
studied in Paris and Antwerp, had exhibited 
in Munich and Turin, and was contemplating 
visiting London the following spring. They 
talked on in this strain until Hellen, re¬ 
membering their mission, exclaimed :— 

‘‘ We must be very close to where I left 
Schiller. I will call to him.” 

He did so—not once, but many times; and 
the reverberation of his voice rang out loud 
and clear in the silence of the vast, moon- 
kissed forest. But there was no response, 


152 


WERWOLVES 


nothing but the rustling of branches and the 
shivering of leaves. 

“ What’s that.^” Marguerite suddenly cried, 
clutching hold of Hellen s arm. “ There! 
right in front of us, lying on the ground. 
There! ” and she indicated the object with 
her gleaming finger-tip. 

“ It looks remarkably like Schiller,” Hellen 
said. “Can he be asleep?” 

Quickening their pace, they speedily arrived 
at the spot. It was Schiller, or rather what 
had once been Schiller, for there was now 
very little left of him but the face and hands 
and feet; the rest had only too obviously been 
eaten. The spectacle was so shocking that 
for some minutes Hellen was too overcome 
to speak. 

“It must have been wolves!” he said at 
length. “ I fancied I heard them several 
times. Would to God I had never left him I 
What a death ! ” 

“ Horrible! ” Marguerite whispered, and 
she turned her head away to avoid so 
harrowing a sight. 

“ Well,” Hellen observed in a voice broken 
with emotion, “it’s no use staying here. We 
can’t be of any service to him now. I will 
gather the remains together in the morning, 
and with the assistance of your father see 
that they are decently interred. Come! let 


IN GERMANY 


153 


us be going.” And offering Marguerite his 
arm, they began to retrace their steps. 

For some time Hellen was too occupied 
with thoughts of his friends cruel death 
to think of anything else, but the close 
proximity of Marguerite gradually made itself 
felt, and by the time they had reached the 
open clearing—the spot where he had en¬ 
countered Wilfred—his passion completely 
overpowered him. Throwing discretion to 
the winds, and oblivious of wife, children, 
home, honour, everything save Marguerite— 
the lustre of her eyes and the dainty curving 
of her lips—he slipped his arm round her 
waist, and pressing her close to him, smothered 
her in kisses. 

“How dare you, sir!” she panted, slowly 
shaking herself free. “ Aren’t you ashamed 
of such behaviour ? What would your wife 
say, if she knew ? ” 

“ I couldn’t help it,” Hellen pleaded. “ I’m 
not myself to-night. Your beauty has be¬ 
witched me, and I would risk anything to 
have you in my arms.” He spoke so earnestly 
and looked at her so appealingly that she 
smiled. 

“ I know I am beautiful,” she said, and the 
intonation of her voice thrilled him to the 
very marrow of his bones. “ Dozens of men 
have told me so. Consequently, since there 


154 


WERWOLVES 


seems to have been some excuse for you, I 

forgive you, only-,” but before she could 

say another word, Hellen had again seized 
her, and this time he did not loosen his 
hold till from sheer exhaustion he could kiss 
her no more. 

“It’s no use!” he panted. “I can’t help 
it. I love you as I never loved a woman 
before, and if you were to ask me to 
do so I would go to Hell with you this 
very minute.” 

“ It is dangerous to express such sentiments 
here,” Marguerite said. “ Don’t you know 
this spot is full of supernatural influences, 
and that the first two things you wish for 
will be granted ? ” 

“ I have already wished,” Hellen said. “ I 
wished when I was here with your father.” 

“ Then wish again,” Marguerite replied; 
“ I assure you your wishes will be fulfilled.” 
And again she looked at him in a way that 
sent all the blood in his body surging wildly 
to his head, and roused his passion in hot and 
furious rebellion against his reason. 

“ I wish, then,” he cried, seizing hold of her 
hands and pressing them to his lips—“ I wish 
every obstacle removed that prevents my 
having you always with me—that is wish 
number one.” 

“ And wish number two ? ” the girl inter- 


IN GERMANY 


155 


rogated, her warm, scented breath fanning 
his cheeks and nostrils. “Won’t you wish 
that you may be mine for ever ? Always 
mine, mine to eternity ! ” 

“ I will! ” Hellen cried. “ May I be yours 
always—yours to do what you like with—in 
this life and the next.” 

“And now you shall have your reward,” 
Marguerite exclaimed, clapping her hands 
gleefully. “ I will kiss you of my own free 
will,” and throwing her arms round his neck, 
she drew his head down to hers, and kissed 
him, kissed him not once but many times. 

An hour later they left the spot and slowly 
made their way to the cottage. As they 
neared it, loud screams for help rent the air, 
and Hellen, to his horror, heard his wife and 
children—he could recognize their individual 
voices—shrieking to him to save them. 

In an instant he was himself again. All his 
old affection for home and family was restored, 
and with a loud answering shout he started 
to rush to their assistance. But Marguerite 
willed otherwise. With a dexterous move¬ 
ment of her feet she got in his way and 
tripped him, and before he had time to realize 
what was happening, she had flung herself on 
the top of him and pinioned him down. 

“No!” she said playfully, “you shall not 


156 


WERWOLVES 


go ! You are mine, mine always, remember, 
and if I choose to keep you here with me, here 
you must remain.” 

He strove to push her off, but he strove in 
vain ; for the slender, rounded limbs he had 
admired so much possessed sinews of steel, 
and he was speedily reduced to a state of 
utter impotence. 

The shrieks from the cottage were gradually 
lapsing into groans and gurgles, all horribly 
suggestive of what was taking place, but it 
was not until every sound had ceased that 
Marguerite permitted Hellen to rise. 

“You may go now,” she said with a mis¬ 
chievous smile, kissing him gaily on the 
forehead and giving his cheeks a gentle slap. 
“ Go—and see what a lucky man you are, 
and how speedily your first wish has been 
gratified.” 

Sick with apprehension, Hellen flew to the 
cottage. His worst forebodings were realized. 
Stretched on the floor of their respective 
rooms, with big, gaping wounds in their 
chests and throats, lay his wife and children ; 
whilst cross-legged, on a chest in the kitchen, 
his dark saturnine face suffused with glee, 
squatted Wilfred. 

“ Fiend ! ” shouted Hellen. “ I understand 
it all now. I have been dealing with the 
Spirits of the Harz Mountains. But be you 


IN GERMANY 


157 


the Devil himself you shan’t escape me,” and 
snatching an axe from the wall, he aimed a 
terrific blow at Wilfred’s head. 

The weapon passed right through the form 
of Wilfred, and Hellen, losing his balance, fell 
heavily to the ground. At this moment 
Marguerite entered. 

“Fool!” she cried; “fool, to think any 
weapon can harm either Wilfred or me. We 
are phantasms—phantasms beyond the power 
of either Heaven or Hell. Come here! ” 

Impelled by a force he could not resist, 
Hellen obeyed—and as he gazed into her 
eyes all his blind infatuation for her came 
back. 

“ We must part now,” she said ; “ but only 
for a while—for remember, you belong to me. 
Here is a token”— and she thrust into his 
hand a wisp of her long, golden hair. “ Sleep 
on it and dream of me. Do not look so sad. 
I shall come for you without fail, and by this 
sign you shall know when I am coming. When 
this mark begins to heal,” she said, as, with 
the nail on the forefinger of the right hand, 
she scratched his forehead, “get ready ! ” 

There was then a loud crash—the room and 
everything in it swam before Hellen’s eyes, 
the floor rose and fell, and sinking backwards 
he remembered no more. 



158 


WERWOLVES 


When he recovered he was lying in the 
centre of the haunted plot. There was nothing 
to be seen around him except the trees—dark 
lofty pines that, swaying to and fro in the 
chill night breeze, shook their sombre heads 
at him. A great sigh of relief broke from 
him—his experiences of course had only been 
a dream. He was trying to collect his thoughts, 
when he discovered that he was holding some¬ 
thing tightly clasped in one of his hands. 
Unable to think what it could be, he rose, 
and held it in the full light of the moon. He 
then saw that it was a tuft of white fur—the 
fur of some animal. Much puzzled, he put it 
in his pocket, and suddenly recollecting his 
friend, set out for the place where he had left 
him. “ I shall soon know,” he said to himself, 
“whether I have been asleep all this time— 
God grant it may be so!” His heart beat 
fearfully as he pressed forward, and he shouted 
out “Schiller” several times. But there was 
no reply, and presently he came upon the 
remains, just as he had seen them when 
accompanied by Marguerite. Convinced now 
that all that had taken place was grim reality, 
he went back along the route Schiller and he 
had taken the preceding day, and in due time 
reached the village. To the landlord of the 
inn where they had stayed he related what 
had happened. “ I am truly sorry for you,” 


IN GERMANY 


159 


the landlord said; “your experience has indeed 
been a terrible one. Every one here knows 
the forest is haunted in that particular spot, 
and we all give it as wide a berth as possible. 
But you have been most unfortunate, for 
Wilfred and Marguerite, who are werwolves, 
only visit these parts periodically. I last 
heard of them being seen when I was about 
ten years of age, and they then ate a pedlar 
called Schwann and his wife.” 

As soon as Schillers remains had been 
brought to the village and interred in the 
cemetery, Hellen, armed to the teeth and 
accompanied by several of the biggest and 
strongest hounds he could hire—for he could 
get none of the villagers to go with him— 
spent a whole day searching for Wilfred’s 
cottage. But although he was convinced he 
had found the exact spot where it had stood, 
there were now no traces of it to be seen. 

At length he returned to the village, and 
on the following morning set out for Frank¬ 
fort. On his arrival home he was immediately 
apprised of the fact that a terrible tragedy 
had occurred in his house. His wife and 
children had been found dead in their beds, 
with their throats cut and dreadful wounds in 
their chests, and the police had not been able 
to find the slightest clue to the murderers. 
With a terrible sinking at the heart Hellen 


160 


WEKWOLVES 


asked for particulars, and learned, as he knew 
only too well he would learn, that the date of 
the tragedy was identical with that of his 
adventure in the forest. 

He tried hard to persuade himself that the 
coincidence was a mere coincidence ; but—he 
knew better. Besides, there was the scratch !— 
the scratch on his forehead. 

Moreover, the scratch remained. It re¬ 
mained fresh and raw till a few days prior to 
his death, when it began to heal. And on the 
day he died it had completely healed. 


CHAPTER X 


A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK IN THE 
HARZ MOUNTAINS ; OR, THE CASE 
OF THE COUNTESS HILDA VON 
BREBER 

NOTHER case of lycanthropy in 



Germany, connected with the Harz 


^Mountains, occurred somewhere about 
the beginning of the last century. 

Count Von Breber, chief of the police of 
Magdeburg, whilst away from home on a 
holiday with his young and beautiful wife, 
the Countess Hilda, happened to pass a night 
in the village of Grautz, in the centre of the 
Harz Mountains. 

In the course of a conversation with the inn¬ 
keeper, the Countess remarked : “ On our way 
here this morning we crossed a brook, and 
experienced the greatest difficulty in persuading 
our dogs to go into the water. It is most 
unusual, as they are generally only too ready 

M 161 


162 


WERWOLVES 


for a dip. Can you in any way account 
for it ? ” 

“Were there two very tall poplars, one on 
either side of the brook ? ” the innkeeper 
asked ; “ and did you notice a peculiar—one 
cannot describe it as altogether unpleasant— 
smell there ? ” 

“ We did! ” the Count and Countess ex¬ 
claimed in chorus. 

“Then it was the spot locally known as 
Wolf Hollow,” the innkeeper said. “No one 
ventures there after dark, as it has a very evil 
reputation.” 

“ Stuff and nonsense ! ” the Count snapped. 

“That is as your honour pleases,” the inn¬ 
keeper said humbly. “We village folk believe 
it to be haunted ; but, of course, if the subject 
appears ridiculous to you, I will take care I do 
not refer to it again.” 

“ Please do ! ” the Countess cried. “ I love 
anything to do with the supernatural. Tell us 
all about it.” 

The innkeeper gave a little nervous cough, 
and glancing uneasily at the Count, whose face 
looked more than usually stern in the fading 
sunlight, observed : “ They do say, madam, that 
whoever drinks the water of that stream-” 

“Yes, yes.^” the Countess cried eagerly. 

“ Suffers a grave misfortune,” 



A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK 


163 


“ Of what nature ? the Countess demanded ; 
but before the innkeeper could answer, the 
Count cut in :— 

“ I forbid you to say another word. The 
Countess has drunk the water there, and your 
cock-and-bull stories will frighten her into fits. 
Confess it is all made up for the benefit of 
travellers like ourselves.” 

“Yes, your honour!” the innkeeper stam¬ 
mered, his knees shaking; “I confess it is 
mere talk, but we all be—be—lieve it.” 

“ That will do—go I ” the Count cried ; and 
the innkeeper, terrified out of his wits, flew 
out of the room. 

Some minutes later mine host received a 
peremptory summons to appear before the 
Count, who was alone and scowling horribly, in 
the best parlour. He had barely got inside the 
room before the Count burst out wrathfully :— 

“ I’ve sent for you, sir, in order to impress 
upon you the fact that if either you or your 
minions mention one word about that brook to 
the Countess, or to her servants—mark that— 
I will have the breath flogged out of your body 
and your tongue snipped, Do you hear ? ” 

“Y—yes, your honour,” the innkeeper 
cried. “ I ful—fully un—understand, and if 
her ladyship asks me any—anything abou— 
out the br—br—brook, I will lie.” 

“ Which won’t trouble you much, eh ? ” 


164 


WERWOLVES 


“ N—n—o, your honour ! I mean y—yes, 
your honour! It will be a burden on my 
con—conscience, but I will do anything to 
pi—please your honour.” 

The interview then terminated, and the inn¬ 
keeper, bathed in perspiration and wishing his 
lot in life anything but what it was, hastened 
to prepare dinner. 

I hope nothing dreadful will happen to 
me; I feel that something will,” the Countess 
said, as she let down her long beautiful hair 
that night. “ Carl, why did you let me drink 
the water?” 

“ The water be -! ” the Count growled. 

“ Didn’t you hear what the innkeeper said ?— 
that the story was mere invention! If you 
believe all the idle tales you hear, you will 
soon be in an asylum. Hilda, I’m ashamed 
of you ! ” 

“And I’m ashamed of myself,” the Countess 
cried, “so there!” and she flung her arms 
round his neck and kissed him. 

The following morning they left the inn, 
and, retracing their steps, journeyed home¬ 
wards. The Count looked at his wife some¬ 
what critically; she was very pale, and there 
were dark rims under her eyes. 

“I do believe, Hilda,” he observed with 
an assumed gaiety, “you are still worrying 
about that water! ” 


A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK 


165 


I am,” she replied; “ I had such queer 
dreams.” 

He asked her to narrate them, but she re¬ 
fused ; and as her sleep now became constantly 
disturbed, and she was getting thin and wor¬ 
ried, the Count determined that as soon as he 
reached home he would call in a doctor. The 
latter, examining the Countess, attributed the 
cause of her indisposition to dyspepsia, and 
ordered her a diet of milk food. But she did 
not get better, and now insisted upon sleeping 
alone, choosing a bedroom situated in a se¬ 
cluded part of the house, where there was 
absolute silence. 

The Count remonstrated. “You might at 
least let me occupy the room next to you ! ” 
he said. 

“ No,” she replied ; “ I should hear you if you 
did. I am sensible now of the very slightest 
sounds, and besides disturbing me, they are a 
source of the greatest annoyance. I feel I 
shall never get well again unless I can have 
complete rest and quiet. Do let me! ” and 
she fixed her big blue eyes on him so earnestly, 
that he vowed he would see that all her wishes, 
no matter how fanciful, were gratified. 

“ I hope she won’t go mad! ” he said to 
himself; “ her behaviour is odd, to say the 
least of it. Odd!—wholly inexplicable.” 

It was rather too bad that just now, when 


166 


WERWOLVES 


his mind was harassed with misgivings at 
home, he should also be bothered with dis¬ 
turbances outside his own home. But so it 
was. Events of an unprecedented nature were 
taking place in the town, and it fell to his lot 
to cope with them. Night after night children 
—mostly of the poorer class—disappeared, and 
despite frantic yet careful and thorough searches, 
no clue as to what had befallen them had, 
so far, been discovered. The Count doubled 
the men on night duty, but in spite of these 
and other extraordinary precautions the dis¬ 
appearances continued, and the affair—already 
of the utmost gravity—promised to be one 
that would prove disastrous, not merely to the 
heads of families, but to the head of the police 
himself. So long as the missing ones had been 
of the lower orders only, the Count had not had 
much to fear—the murmurings of their parents 
could easily be held in check—but now that 
a few of the children of the rich had been 
spirited away, there was every likelihood of 
the matter reaching the ears of the Court. One 
evening, when the Count had hardly recovered 
his equanimity after a stormy interview with 
Herr Meichen, the banker, whose three-year- 
old daughter had vanished, and a still more 
distressing scene with Otto Schmidt, the lawyer, 
whose six-year-old daughter had disappeared, 
his patience was called upon to undergo a still 


A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK 167 


further trial in consequence of a visit from 
General Carl Rittenberg, a person of the 
greatest importance, not only in the town, but 
in the whole province. Purple in the face 
with suppressed fury, the General burst into 
the room where the head of the police sat. 

Count! ” he cried, striking the table with 
his fist, “ this is beyond a joke. My child— 
my only child—Elizabeth, whom my wife and 
I passionately love, has been stolen. She was 
walking by my side in Frederick Street this 
afternoon, and as it suddenly became foggy, I 
left her a moment to hail a vehicle to take us 
home. I wasn’t gone from her more than half 
a minute at the most, but when I returned 
she had gone. I searched everywhere, shout¬ 
ing her name ; and passers by, compassionate 
strangers, joined me in my search ; but though 
we have looked high and low not a trace of 
her have we been able to discover. I have not 
told her mother yet. God help me—I dare 
not! I dare not even show my face at home 
without her—my wife will never forgive 

me-” ; and so great was his emotion that 

he buried his face in his hands, and his great 
body heaved and shook. Then he started to 
his feet, his eyes bulging and lurid. “Curse 
you!” he shrieked; “curse you. Count I it’s 
all your fault 1 Day after day you’ve sat here, 
when you ought to have been hunting up these 


168 


WERWOLVES 


rascally police of yours. You’ve no right to 
rest one second—not one second, do you hear ? 
—till the mystery surrounding these poor lost 
children has been cleared up, and, living or 
dead—God forbid it should prove to be the 
latter!—they are restored to their parents. 
Now, mark my words, Count, unless my child 
Elizabeth is found. I’ll make your name a by¬ 
word throughout the length and breadth of the 

country—I’ll-” ; but words failed him, and, 

shaking his fist, he staggered out of the room. 

The Count was much perturbed. The 
General was one of the few people in the town 
who really had it in their power to do him 
harm—the one man above all others with 
whom he had hitherto made it his business to 
keep in. He had not the least doubt but 
that the General meant all he said, and he 
recognized only too well that his one and only 
hope of salvation lay in the recovery of Eliza¬ 
beth. But, God in heaven, where could he 
look for her ? Sick at heart, he marshalled 
every policeman in the force, and within an 
hour every street in Magdeburg was being 
subjected to a most rigorous search. The 
Count was just quitting his office, resolved to 
join in the hunt himself, when a shabbily 
dressed woman brushed past the custodian at 
the door, and racing up to him, flung herself at 
his feet. 



A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK 169 


“ What the devil does she want ? ” the Count 
demanded savagely. “ Who is she ? ” 

“ Martha Brochel, your honour, a poor half¬ 
witted creature, who was one of the first in the 
town to lose a child,” the door-porter replied ; 
“ and the shock of it has driven her mad! ” 

“ Mad ! mad ! Yes ! that is just what I am— 
mad ! ” the woman broke out. “ Everything is 
in darkness. It is always night! There are 
no houses, no chimneys, no lanterns, only 
trees—big, black trees that rustle in the wind, 
and shake their heads mockingly. And then 
something hideous comes 1 What is it ? Take 
it away I Take it away I Give her back to 
me 1 ” And as Martha’s voice rose to a shriek, 
she threw her hands over her head, and, 
clenching them, growled and snarled like a 
wild animal. 

“ Put her outside I ” the Count said with an 
impatient gesture; “ and take good care she 
does not get in here again.” 

“No! Don’t turn me away! Don’t! 
don’t! ” Martha screamed ; “ I forgot what it 
was I wanted to tell you—but I remember 
now. I’ve seen it!—seen the thing that stole 
my child. There is light—light again ! Oh ! 
hear me ! ” 

“ Where have you seen it, Martha ? ” the 
porter inquired; and looking at the Count, he 
said respectfully : “ It is just possible, your 


170 


WERWOLVES 


honour, this woman might be of use to us, 
and that she has actually seen the person who 
stole her child.” 

“ Rubbish! What right has she to have 
children ? ” the Count snapped, and he spurned 
the supplicant with his boot. 

The moment she was in the street, however, 
the head of the police was after her. Keeping 
close behind her, he resolutely dogged her steps. 
The evening was now far advanced, and the 
fog so dense that the Count, though he knew 
the city, was soon at a total loss as to his 
whereabouts. But on and on the woman 
went, now deviating to the right, now to the 
left; sometimes pausing as if listening, then 
tearing on again at such a rate that the Count 
was obliged to run to keep up with her. 
Suddenly she uttered a shrill cry : 

“ There it is 1 There it is ! The thing that 
took my child! ” and the figure of what cer¬ 
tainly appeared to be a woman, muffled, and 
carrying a sack on her shoulder, glided across 
the road just in front of them and disappeared 
in the impenetrable darkness. Martha sped 
after her, and the Count, his hopes raised high, 
followed in hot pursuit. He failed to recognize 
the ground they were traversing, and presently 
they came to a high wall, over which Martha 
scrambled with the agility of an acrobat. The 
Count, in attempting to imitate her, damaged 


A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK 171 


his knee and tore his clothes, but he also landed 
safely on the other side. Then on they went, 
Martha with unabated energy, the Count 
horribly exhausted, and beginning to think of 
turning back, when they were abruptly brought 
to a standstill. The walls of some building 
loomed right ahead of them. The object of 
their pursuit, again visible, darted through a 
doorway; whilst Martha, with a loud cry of 
triumph, sprang in after her ; but before the 
Count could cross the threshold the door was 
slammed and locked in his face. Then he 
heard a chorus of the most appalling sounds— 
sounds so strange and unearthly that his blood 
turned to ice and his hair rose straight on end. 
Rushing footsteps mingled with peculiar soft 
patterings ; agonized human screams coupled 
with the growls and snappings of an animal ; 
a heavy thud ; gurgles ; and then silence. 

The Count s courage revived : he hurled him¬ 
self against the door ; it gave with a crash, and 
the next moment he was inside. But what a 
sight met his eyes! The place, which some¬ 
how or the other seemed oddly familiar to him, 
was a veritable shambles—floor, walls, and 
furniture were sodden with blood. In every 
corner were mangled human remains; whilst 
stretched on the ground, opposite the doorway, 
lay the body of Martha, her face unrecog¬ 
nizable and her breast and stomach ripped 


172 


WERWOLVES 


right open. This was terrible enough, but 
more terrible by far was the author of it all, 
who, having cast aside wraps, now stood fully 
revealed in the yellow glow of a lantern. 
What the Count saw was a monstrosity—a 
thing with a woman’s breast, a woman’s hair, 
golden and curly, but the face and feet were 
those of a wolf; whilst the hands, white and 
slender, were armed with long, glittering nails, 
cruelly sharp and dripping with blood. 

To the Count’s astonishment the creature 
did not attack him, but uttering a low plaintive 
cry, veered round and endeavoured to escape. 
But escape was the very last thing Van 
Breber would permit. Whatever the thing 
was—beast or devil—it had caused him endless 
trouble, and if allowed to get away now, would 
go on with its escapades, and so bring about 
his ruin. No! he must kill it. Kill it even at 
the risk of his own life. With a shout of wrath 
he plunged his sword up to its hilt in the 
thing’s back. 

It fell to the floor and the Count bent over 
it curiously. Something was happening— 
something strange and terrifying ; but he could 
not look—he was forced to shut his eyes. 
When he opened them he no longer saw the 
hairy visage of a wolf—he was gazing fondly 
into the dying eyes of his beautiful and much¬ 
loved wife. With a rapidity like lightning, he 


A LYCANTHROPOUS BROOK 173 


recognized his surroundings. He was in a 
long disused summer-house that stood in a 
remote corner of his own grounds! 

“ God help me and you, too ! ” the Countess 
Hilda whispered, clasping him fondly in her 
arms. “It was the water!—the water I 
drank in the Harz Mountains ! I have been 

bewitched-” ; and kissing him feverishly 

on the lips, she sank back—dead. 



CHAPTER XI 


WERWOLVES IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 
AND THE BALKAN PENINSULA 

The Case of the Family of Kloska and 

THE LyCANTHROPOUS FlOWER 

I N the mountainous regions of Austria- 
Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula 
are certain flowers credited with the 
property of converting into werwolves who¬ 
ever plucks and wears them. Needless to say, 
these flowers are very rare, but I have heard of 
their having been found, comparatively recently, 
both in the Transylvanian Alps and the 
Balkans. A story a propos of one of these 
discoveries was told me last summer. 

Ivan and Olga were the children of Otto and 
Vera Kloska—the former a storekeeper of 
Kerovitch, a village on the Roumanian side of 
the Transylvanian Alps. One morning they 
were out with their mother, watching her wash 
clothes in a brook at the back of their house, 
when, getting tired of their occupation, they 
wandered into a thicket. 

174 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGAKY 


175 


“ Let’s make a chaplet of flowers,” Olga said, 
plucking a daisy. “ You gather the flowers and 
ril weave them together.” 

“ It’s not much of a game,” Ivan grumbled, 
“ but I can’t think of anything more exciting 
just now, so I’ll play it. But let’s both make 
wreaths and see which makes the best.” 

To this Olga agreed, and they were soon 
busily hunting amidst the grass and under¬ 
growth, and scrambling into all sorts of possible 
and impossible places. 

Presently Ivan heard a scream, followed by a 
heavy thud, and running in the direction of the 
noise, narrowly avoided falling into a pit, the 
sides of which were partly overgrown with 
weeds and brambles. 

“ It’s all right,” Olga shouted ; '‘I’m not 
hurt. I landed on soft ground. It’s not very 
deep, and there’s such a queer flower here—I 
don’t know what it is; I’ve never seen one like 
it before.” 

Ivan’s curiosity thus aroused, he carefully 
examined the sides of the pit, and, selecting the 
shallowest spot, lowered himself slowly over 
and then dropped. It was nothing of a dis¬ 
tance, seven or eight feet at the most, and he 
alighted without mishap on a clump of rank, 
luxuriant grass. “See! here it is,” his sister 
cried, pointing to a large, very vivid white 
flower, shaped something like a sunflower, but 


176 


WERWOLVES 


soft and pulpy, and full of a sweet, nauseating 
odour. “ It’s too big to put in a wreath, so I’ll 
wear it in my buttonhole.” 

“ Better not,” Ivan said, snatching it from 
her; “I don’t like it. It’s a nasty-looking 
thing. I believe it’s a sort of fungus.” 

Olga then began to cry, and as Ivan was 
desirous of keeping the peace, he gave her back 
the flower. She was a prepossessing child, 
with black hair and large dark eyes, pretty 
teeth and plump, sunburnt cheeks. Nor was 
she altogether unaware of her attractions, for 
even at so early an age she had a goodly share 
of the inordinate vanity common to her sex, and 
liked nothing better than appearing out-of-doors 
in a new frock plentifully besprinkled with 
rosettes and ribbons. The flower, she told her¬ 
self, would look well on her scarlet bodice, and 
would be a good set-off to her black hair and 
olive complexion. All this was, of course, 
beyond the comprehension of Ivan, who re¬ 
garded his sister’s weakness with the most 
supreme contempt, and for his own part was 
never so happy as when skylarking with other 
boys and getting into every conceivable kind of 
mischief. Yet for all that he was in the main 
sensible, almost beyond his years, and extremely 
fond, and—though he would not admit it— 
proud of Olga. 

She fixed the flower in her dress, and imita- 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


177 


ting to the best of her knowledge the carriage 
of royalty, strutted up and down, saying “ Am 
I not grand? Don’t I look nice? Ivan— 
salute me! ” 

And Ivan was preparing to salute her in the 
proper military style, taught him by a great 
friend of his in the village, a soldier in the 
carabineers for whom he had an intense admi¬ 
ration, when his jaw suddenly fell and his eyes 
bulged. 

“ Whatever is the matter with you ? ” 
Olga asked. 

“There’s nothing the matter with me,” Ivan 
cried, shrinking away from her ; “ but there is 
with you. Don’t! don’t make such faces—they 
frighten me,” and turning round, he ran to the 
place where he had made his descent and tried 
to climb up. 

Some minutes later the mother of the children, 
hearing piercing shrieks for help, flew to the 
pit, and, missing her footing, slipped over the 
brink, and falling some ten or more feet, broke 
one of her legs and otherwise bruised herself. 
For some seconds she was unconscious, and 
the first sight that met her eyes on coming to 
was Ivan kneeling on the ground, feebly 
endeavouring to hold at bay a gaunt grey 
wolf that had already bitten him about the legs 
and thigh, and was now trying hard to fix its 
wicked white fangs into his throat. 

N 


178 


WERWOLVES 


“ Help me, mother ! ” Ivan gasped ; “ I’m 
getting exhausted. It’s Olga.” 

“ Olga!” the mother screamed, making frantic 
efforts to come to his assistance. “ Olga I what 
do you mean ? ” 

“ It’s all owing to a flower—a white flower,” 
Ivan panted ; “ Olga would pluck it, and no 
sooner had she fixed it on her dress than she 
turned into a wolf! Quick, quick! I can’t hold 
it off any longer.” 

Thus adjured the wretched woman made a 
terrific effort to rise, and failing in this, clenched 
her teeth, and, lying down, rolled over and over 
till she arrived at the spot where the struggle 
was taking place. By this time, however, the 
wolf had broken through Ivan’s guard, and he 
was now on his back with his right arm in the 
grip of his ferocious enemy. 

The mother had not a knife, but she had a 
long steel skewer she used for sticking into a tree 
as a means of fastening one end of her washing 
line. She wore it hanging to her girdle, and it 
was quite by a miracle it had not run into her 
when she fell. 

“Take care, mother,” Ivan cried, as she 
raised it ready to strike; “ remember, it is 
Olga.’’ ^ 

This indeed was an ugly fact that the woman 
in her anxiety to save the boy had forgotten. 
What should she do? To merely wound the 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


179 


animal would be to make it ten times more 
savage, in which case it would almost inevitably 
destroy them both. To kill it would mean 
killing Olga. Which did she love the most, 
the boy or the girl.^ Never was a mother 
placed in such a dilemma. And she had no 
time to deliberate, not even a second. God 
help her, she chose. And like ninety-nine out 
of a hundred mothers would have done, she 
chose the boy ; he—he at all costs must be 
saved. She struck, struck with all the pent-up 
energy of despair, and in her blind, mad zeal 
she struck again. 

The first blow, penetrating the werwolf s eye, 
sank deep into its brain, but the second blow 
missed—missed, and falling aslant, alighted on 
the form beneath. 

An hour later a villager on his way home, 
hearing extraordinary sounds of mirth, went to 
the side of the pit and peeped over. 

“Vera Kloska!” he screamed; “Heaven 
have mercy on us, what have you there ? ” 

“ He ! he ! he ! ” came the answer. “ He ! 
he! he! My children! Don’t they look 
funny ? Olga has such a pretty white flower 
in her buttonhole, and Ivan a red stain on his 
forehead. They are deaf—they won’t reply 
when I speak to them. See if you can make 
them hear.” 

But the villager shook his head. “They’ll 


180 


WERWOLVES 


never hear again in this world, mad soul,” he 
muttered. “ You’ve murdered them.” 

Besides this white flower there is a yellow 
one, of the same shape and size as a snap¬ 
dragon ; and a red one, something similar to 
an ox-eyed daisy, both of which have the power 
of metamorphosing the plucker and wearer 
into a werwolf. Both have the same peculiar 
vividness of colour, the same thick, sticky sap, 
and the same sickly, faint odour. They are 
both natives of Austria-Hungary and the 
Balkan Peninsula, and are occasionally to be 
met with in damp, marshy places. 

Certain flowers (lilies-of-the-valley, mari¬ 
golds, and azaleas), as also diamonds, are said 
to attract werwolves, thus proving a source of 
danger to those who wear them. And propos 
of this magnetic property of diamonds the 
following anecdote comes to me from the 
Tyrol 

A Werwolf in Innsbruck 

Madame Mildau was one of the prettiest 
women in Innsbruck. She had golden hair, 
large violet eyes, a smile that would melt a 
Loyola, and diamonds that set every woman’s 
mouth watering. With such inducements to 
seduction, how could Madame Mildau help 
delighting in balls and f^tes, and in promenad- 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


181 


ing constantly before the public]^? She revelled 
in a universal admiration—she aimed at a 
monopoly—and she lived wholly and solely to 
exact homage. To" be deprived of any single 
opportunity of displaying her charms and con¬ 
sequent triumphs would indeed have been a 
hardship, and to nothing short of a very serious 
indisposition would Madame Mildau have 
sacrificed her pleasure. 

Now it so happened that three of the most 
brilliant entertainments of the season fell on 
the same night, and Madame Mildau, with all 
the unreason of her sex, desired to attend 
each one of them. 

“ I have accepted these three invitations,” 
she informed her husband, “ and to these three 
balls I mean to go. I shall apportion the time 
equally between them. You forget,” she added, 
“ that the success of these entertainments really 
depends on me. Crowds go only to see me, 
and I should never forgive myself if I dis¬ 
appointed them.” 

But her husband, with the perversity char¬ 
acteristic of gout and middle age, combined, 
no doubt, with a not unnatural modicum of 
jealousy, maintained that one such fete should 
be sufficient amusement for one night. She 
might take her choice of one; he would on 
no account permit her to attend all three. 
Much to his surprise and delight Madame 


182 


WERWOLVES 


Mildau made no scene, but graciously sub¬ 
mitted after a few mild protestations. A little 
later her husband remarked encouragingly :— 

“ I congratulate you, Julia, on your philoso¬ 
phy and self-restraint. In yielding to my 
wishes you have pleased me immeasurably, 
and I should like to show my gratification in 
some substantial manner. As it is some 
months since I gave you a present, I have 
resolved to make you one now. You may 
choose what you like.” 

“ I have chosen,” Madame Mildau replied 
calmly. 

“ What, already ! ” her husband cried. “ You 
sly creature. You have been keeping this up 
your sleeve. What is it ? ” 

“ A diamond tiara,” was the cool reply. 
“ The one you said you could not afford last 
Christmas.” 

“ Mon Dieu ! ” her husband gasped. “ I 
shall be ruined.” 

“You will be ruined if you do not give it to 
me,” Madame Mildau replied, “ for in that 
case I should leave you. I couldn’t live with 
a liar.” 

Her husband wrung his hands. He implored 
her to choose something else, but it was of no 
avail, and within two hours Madame Mildau 
had visited the jeweller and the tiara was hers. 

The eventful day came at last, and Madame 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


183 


Mildau, escorted by her husband, attended one 
of the most popular balls of the season. She 
did not wear her tiara. There had been several 
highway jewellery robberies in the neighbour¬ 
hood of late, and she pleased her husband 
immensely by leaving her diamonds carefully 
locked up at home. 

“You are prudence itself,” he said, gazing 
at her in admiration. “ And as a reward you 
shall dance all the evening whilst I look on 
and admire you.” 

But soon Madame Mildau could dance no 
longer. She had a very bad headache, and 
begged her husband to take her home. M. Mildau 
was very sympathetic. He was very sorry for 
his wife, and suggested that she should take 
some brandy. She readily agreed that a little 
brandy might do her good, and they took some 
together in their bedroom, after which madame’s 
husband remembered little more. He had a 
vague notion that his wife was rolling his 
neck-handkerchief round his forehead in the 
form of a Turkish turban, and patting him on 
the cheeks and smilingly wishing him a thou¬ 
sand pleasant dreams, and then—all was a 
blank. He might as well have been dead. 
With madame it was otherwise. The head¬ 
ache was, of course, a ruse. The brandy she 
had given her husband had been well drugged, 
and no sooner had she made sure it had taken 


184 


WERWOLVES 


effect than she snapped her daintily manicured 
finger-tips in the air, and retiring to her dress¬ 
ing-room, changed the dress she was wearing 
for one ten times more costly and beautiful— 
a dress of rose-coloured gauze, upon which a 
drapery of lace was suspended by agraffes of 
diamonds. A wreath of pale roses, that seemed 
to have been bathed in the dew of the morn¬ 
ing, the better to harmonize with the delicate 
complexion of her lovely face, nestled in her 
hair, and above it, more magnificent than any¬ 
thing yet seen in Innsbruck, and setting off to 
perfection the dazzling lustre of her yellow 
curls, the tiara of diamonds. 

After a final survey of herself in the glass, 
she slipped on her cloak, and stole softly out 
to join her intimate friend, the Countess Linitz, 
who was also going to the ball. All things 
so far had worked wonderfully well ; not even 
a servant suspected her. In order to avoid 
trusting her secret to anyone in the house, she 
had employed a stranger to hire an elegant 
carriage, which was in waiting for her at a dis¬ 
creet distance from the front door. The ball 
at which Madame Mildau soon arrived with 
her friend was much more to her liking than 
the one to which she had been previously 
escorted by her husband. The music was 
more harmonious, the conversation more 
amiable, the dresses more elaborate, and, what 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


185 


was more important than all, Madame Mildau’s 
success was even more instantaneous and com¬ 
plete. The whole room—host, guests, 
musicians, even waiters—one and all were 
literally dumbfounded at the extraordinary 
beauty of her face and costume, to say nothing 
of her jewels. Such an entrancing spectacle 
was without parallel in a ballroom in Inns¬ 
bruck ; and when she left, before the enter¬ 
tainment was over, all the life, the light, the 
gaiety went with her. 

But it was at the third ball, to which the 
same equipage surreptitiously bore her, that 
Madame Mildau’s enjoyment and triumphs 
reached their zenith ; and it was only towards 
the close of that entertainment—when she felt, 
by that revelation of instinct which never 
deceives women on similar occasions, that it 
was time to depart; that the brilliancy of her 
eyes, no less than the beauty of her dress, was 
fading; that her lips, parched with fatigue, 
had lost that humid red which rendered them 
so pretty and inviting, and that the dust had 
taken the beautiful gloss off her hair—that she 
experienced, for the first time, a sentiment of 
uneasiness in reviewing the rashness of her 
conduct. How was it possible, she asked 
herself, to prevent a casual acquaintance—her 
friends she could warn—letting out in conver¬ 
sation before her husband that she had been 


186 


WERWOLVES 


to these balls. And supposing he thus got to 
know of her deceit, what then? 

This idea—the idea of being found out— 
with all its consequences, rose before her. Her 
exhausted imagination could find nothing to 
oppose it, nothing to relieve the feeling of 
depression which took possession of her, and 
she almost felt remorse when she threw herself 
into her carriage. It was a very dark night, 
cold and windy, and she was only too thankful 
to nestle close into the soft cushions at her back, 
and bury her face in the warm fur of her costly 
wrap. For some minutes she remained 
absorbed in thought; but it was not long 
before the monotonous rumble, rumble of the 
carriage produced a sensation of drowsiness, 
from which she was rudely awakened by the 
sound of a cough. Glancing in the direction 
from whence it came, to her utmost dismay and 
astonishment she saw, seated in the opposite 
corner of the vehicle, a young man of good, if 
somewhat peculiar appearance, and extremely 
well dressed. Madame Mildau instantly took 
in all the disadvantages of her situation, and, 
overwhelmed by the imprudence of her con¬ 
duct, exclaimed in a tone in which dignity and 
terror struggled for mastery, “ Sir, what 
audacity! ” 

Yes, indeed, what audacity!” the stranger 
replied, affecting to be shocked. “What 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


187 


pride! What a love of display! ” and he 
rolled his big eyes at her and bared his teeth. 

“ But, sir,” Madame Mildau cried in horror, 
concluding that the unknown was a madman, 
“ this is my carriage. I beg you will depart— 
I beseech you—I command you. I will summon 
my servants.” 

“ That will be a vain waste of valuable 
breath,” replied the young man coolly. “You 
may call your servants—but there is only 
one, and he is mine. He will not answer 
you.” 

“ Where am I, then ? How infamous ! ” ex¬ 
claimed Madame Mildau, and she burst into 
tears. “ Oh, how cruelly punished I am ! ” 

“It is true, madame, you will be punished 
for having been agreeable, gay, and brilliant 
to-night without the consent of your husband ; 
but at present he knows nothing about it, for 
at this moment he reposes in the sleep of the 
just, confident that you are enjoying the same 
repose close to him. As to yourself, madame, 
why this fear? You will have nothing to 
dread, I assure you, from my indiscretion ; but, 
as you may be aware, there is no fault, however 
small, that has not its expiation. Nay, do not 
weep. Am I so ugly ? Why should you 
dread me so, madame ? I am a great admirer 
of your charms, desirous to know you better. 
Nay, have no suspicions as to my morality—I 


188 


WERWOLVES 


am no profligate. I came to the ball to-night 
for quite another purpose.” 

‘‘ Sir, I understand you. You are employed 
by my husband. A spy I Detestable ! ” 

“ Stop, madame,” the stranger said, laying 
his hand gently on hers. “ Debase not the 
dignity of man by imagining for one instant 
that there is anyone who would lend himself so 
readily to act the odious part you impute to me. 

I am no spy.” 

“In Heaven’s name, then,” Madame Mildau 
exclaimed, “ what brings you here ? What do 
you want ? Who are you ? ” 

“ One at a time, madame,” the young man 
ejaculated. “To begin with, it was those 
diamonds of yours—those rings on your soft 
and delicate fingers, those bracelets on your 
slender rounded wrists, that necklace and 
pendant on your snowy breast, and over and 
above all that splendid tiara on your matchless 
hair. It was the sight of all those bright and 
gleaming stars that attracted me, just as the 
light of a candle attracts a moth. I could not 
resist them.” 

“ Then you—you are a robber ! ” stammered 
the lady, ready to faint with terror. 

“ Wrong again! ” the young man said; “ I 
admire your jewels, it is true, but I am no 
thief.” 

“Then, in mercy’s name, what are you?” 
demanded the lady. 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


189 


“ Well! ” the stranger replied, speaking with 
a slight snarl, “ I am a man now, but I shall 
soon change.” 

“A man and will soon change?” Madame 
Mildau cried; “oh, you’re mad, mad—and I’m 
shut up in here with a lunatic! Help! 
help! ” 

“Calmly, calmly,” the stranger exclaimed, 
lifting her hands to his lips and kissing them. 
“ I’m perfectly sane, and at present perfectly 
harmless. Now tell me, madame—and mind, 
be candid with me—why don’t you love your 
husband ? ” 

“ How do you know I don’t ? ” Madame 
Mildau faltered. 

“Tut, tut!” the young man said. “Any¬ 
one could see that with half an eye. Besides, 
consider your conduct to-night I Answer my 
questions.” 

“ Well, you see I ” Madame Mildau stam¬ 
mered, having come to the conclusion that even 
if the man were not mad it would be highly 
impolitic to provoke him, “I’m so much 
younger than he is. I’m only twenty-three, 
whereas he is forty-five. Besides, he detests 
all amusements, and I love them—especially 
dances. He is too fat to-” 

“Are you sure he is fat? Will you swear 
he is fat?” the stranger asked, grasping her 
hands so tightly that she screamed. 



190 


WERWOLVES 


“ I swear it! ” she said, “ he is quite the 
fattest man I know.” 

“ And tender! But no, he can’t be very 
tender! ” 

“ What questions to ask ! ” Madame Mildau 
said. “ How do I know whether he is tender ! 
Besides, what does it concern you ? ” 

“ It concerns me much,” the young man 
retorted; “and you, too, madame. You 
asked me just now a question concerning 
myself. Your curiosity shall be satisfied. I 
am a werwolf. My servant on the box who 
took the place of your employ^ is a werwolf. 
In an hour the metamorphosis will take place. 
You are out here in the Wood of Arlan alone 
with us.” 

“In the Wood of Arlan ! ” 

“ Yes, madame, in the Wood of Arlan, which 
is, as you know, one of the wildest and least 
frequented spots in this part of the Tyrol. We 
are both ravenously hungry, and—well, you 
can judge the rest! ” 

Madame Mildau, who regarded werwolves in 
the same category as satyrs and mermaids, was 
once more convinced that she had to deal with 
a lunatic, but thinking it wisest to humour 
him, she said, “ I shouldn’t advise you to eat 
me. I’m not at all nice. I’m dreadfully 
tough.” 

“You’re not that,” the young man said. 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


191 


“but I’m not at all sure that the paint and 
powder on your cheeks might not prove 
injurious. Anyhow, I have decided to spare 
you on one condition ! ” 

“Yes! and that is?” Madame Mildau ex¬ 
claimed, clapping her hands joyfully. 

“ That you let me have your husband 
instead. Give me the keys of your house, and 
my man and I will fetch him. Did you leave 
him sound asleep ? ” 

“Yes!” Madame Mildau faltered. 

“In other words you drugged him! I 
knew it! I can read it in your eyes. Well— 
so much the better. Your foresight has 
proved quite providential. We will bind you 
securely and leave you here whilst we are 
gone, and when we return with your husband 
you shall be freed, and my man shall drive you 
home. The key ? ” 

Madame Mildau gave it him. With the aid 
of his servant—a huge man, well over six feet 
and with the chest and limbs of a Hercules— 
the stranger then proceeded to gag and bind 
Madame Mildau hand and foot, and lifting her 
gently on to the road, fastened her securely to 
the trunk of a tree. 

“ Au revoir!” he exclaimed, kissing her 
lightly on the forehead. “We shan’t be long! 
These horses go like the wind.” 

The next moment he was gone. For some 


192 


WERWOLVES 


seconds Madame Mildau struggled desperately 
to free herself; then, recognizing the futility of 
her efforts, resigned herself to her fate. At 
last she heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs and 
the rumble of wheels, and in a few minutes she 
was once again free. 

“ Quick ! ” the stranger said, leading her by 
the arm, “ there’s not a moment to lose. The 
transmutation has already begun. In a few 
seconds we shall both be wolves and your fate 
will be sealed. We’ve got your husband, and, 
fortunately for you, he is as you described him, 
nice and plump. If you want to take a final 
peep at him, do so at once; it’s your last 
chance.” 

But Madame Mildau had no such desire. 
She moved aside as her husband, clad in his 
pyjamas and still sleeping soundly, was lifted 
out of the vehicle and placed on the ground, 
and then, hurriedly brushing past him, was 
about to enter the carriage, when the young 
man interposed. 

“On the box, madame. We could not find 
you a coachman—you must drive yourself; 
and as you value your life, drive like the-” 

But madame did not wait for further 
instructions. Springing lightly on the box, she 
picked up the reins, and with a crack of the 
whip the horses were off. A minute later, 
and the wild howl of wolves, followed by a 


IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 


193 


piercing human scream, rang out in the still 
morning air. 

“That’s my husband! I recognize his 
voice,” Madame Mildau sighed. “Ah, well! 
thank God, the man wasn’t a robber. My 
diamonds are safe.” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE WERWOLF IN SPAIN 

W erwolves are, perhaps, rather 
less common in Spain than in any 
other part of Europe. They are 
there almost entirely confined to the moun¬ 
tainous regions (more particularly to the Sierra 
de Guadarrama, the Cantabrian, and the 
Pyrenees), and are usually of the male species. 
Generally speaking the property of lycanthropy 
in Spain appears to be hereditary; and, as one 
would naturally expect in a country so pro¬ 
nouncedly Roman Catholic, to rid the lycan- 
thropist of his unenviable property it is the 
custom to resort to exorcism. Though they 
are extremely rare, both flowers and streams 
possessing the power of transmitting the pro¬ 
perty of werwolfery are to be found in the 
Cantabrian mountains and the Pyrenees. 

And in Spain, as in Austria-Hungary, 
precious stones—particularly rubies—not in- 


IN SPAIN 


195 


frequently, and often with disastrous results, 
attract the werwolf. 

The following case of a Spanish werwolf 
may be taken as typical:— 

In the month of September, 1853, a young 
man, one Paul Nicholas, arrived from Paris at 
Pamplona, and took up his abode at THotel 
Hervada. 

He was rich, idle, sleek; and the sole object 
of his stay at Pamplona was the pursuit of 
some little adventure wherewith he might be 
temporarily employed, and whereof perchance 
he might afterwards boast. Well, in the hotel 
there had arrived, a day or two before 
Monsieur Nicholas, a young and beautiful lady, 
the effect of whose personal attractions was 
intensified by certain mysterious circumstances. 
No one knew her; she had no one with her— 
not even a servant to be bribed—and although 
eminently fitted to shine in society, she went 
neither to the opera nor the dance. As may 
be readily understood, she was soon the sole 
topic of conversation in the hotel. Every one 
talked of her rare beauty, elegance, and 
musical genius, and immediately after dinner, 
when she retired to her room, many of the 
guests would steal upstairs after her, and, 
stationing themselves outside her door, would 
remain there for hours to listen to her singing. 

Paul Nicholas’s head was completely turned. 


196 


WERWOLVES 


To have such a neighbour, with the face and 
voice of an angel, and yet not to know her! 
It was enough to drive him wild. At last, to 
every ones surprise, the mysterious lady, 
apparently so exclusive, permitted the ad¬ 
vances ol a very commonplace, middle-aged 
gentleman with hardly a hair on his head and 
a paunch that was voted quite disgusting. 

The friendship between the two ripened fast. 
In defiance of all conventionality, the lady took 
to sitting out late at night with her elderly 
admirer, and, with an absolute disregard of 
decorum, accompanied him on long excursions. 
Finally, she went away with him altogether. 
On the occasion of this latter event every one 
in the hotel heaved a sigh of relief, saving 
Paul. 

Paul was disconsolate. He stayed on, 
hovering about the places she had most 
frequented, and hoping to see in every fresh 
arrival at the hotel his adored one come back. 
His pitiable condition gained no sympathy. 

“ Silly fellow ! ” was the general comment. 
“He is desperately in love ! And with such 
a creature ! What an idiot! ” 

But Pauls patience was at length rewarded, 
his devotion apparently justified, for the lady 
returned, unaccompanied ; and so great was 
the charm of her personality that within two 
days of her reappearance she had completely 


IN SPAIN 


197 


won back the hearts of her fellow-guests. 
Again every one raved of her. 

Meanwhile, Paul Nicholas became more 
enamoured than ever. He bought a guitar, 
and composed love lyrics—which he sang 
outside her door, from morning till night, with 
all that wealth of tenderness so uniquely ex¬ 
pressible in a human voice—but it was all in 
vain. For the lady, whose name had at last 
leaked out—it was Isabelle de Nurrez—had 
yielded to the attentions of another stout, 
middle-aged gentleman, with whom in due 
course she departed. 

This was too much even for her most ardent 
admirers. Every guest in the hotel protested, 
and petitioned that she might not be re¬ 
admitted. 

But mine host shook his head with scant 
apology. “ I cannot help it,” he said. “The 
lady pays more for her rooms than all the rest 
of you put together, so why should I turn her 
out ? After all, if she likes to have many 
sweethearts, why shouldn’t she It is her 
own concern, neither yours nor mine. It 
harms no one ! ” 

And some of the guests, seeing logic in their 
landlord’s views, remained; others went. As 
for Paul, he was immeasurably shocked at the 
bad taste of his adored one ; but he stayed on, 
and within a few days, as he had fondly hoped, 


198 


WERWOLVES 


the fickle creature returned—and, as before, 
returned alone. It was then that he resolved 
on writing to her. With a crow-quill almost as 
fine as the long silky eyelashes of Isabella, on 
a sheet of paper whose border of Cupids, 
grapes, vases, and roses left little—too little— 
space for writing, he indited his letter, which, 
when completed, he sealed with a seal of azure 
blue wax, bearing the device of a dove ready 
for flight. And so scented was this epistle 
that it perfumed the entire hotel in its transit 
by means of a servant (well paid for the 
purpose) to mademoiselle s room. Again— 
this time for an endless amount of trouble 
and expense — Paul was rewarded. When 
next he met mademoiselle, and an opportune 
moment arrived, she looked at him, and as her 
lovely eyes scanned his manly, if somewhat 
portly figure, she smiled—smiled a smile of 
satisfaction which meant much. Paul Nicholas 
was in ecstasies. He hardly knew how to 
contain himself; he sighed, radiated, and 
wriggled about to such an extent that the 
attention of every one in the place was directed 
to him ; whereupon Mile de Nurrez turned 
very red and frowned. Pauls expectations 
now sank to zero; for the rest of the day he 
was almost too miserable to live. But Mile 
de Nurrez, no doubt perceiving him to be 
truly penitent for having so embarrassed her, 


IN SPAIN 


199 


forgave him, and on his way to dinner he 
received a note in her own pretty handwriting 
giving him permission to make her acquaint¬ 
ance without any further introduction. The 
way thus paved, Monsieur Paul Nicholas, over¬ 
joyed, lost no time in seeking out the lady. 
She was singing a wild sweet song as he 
entered her sitting-room, and her back, turned 
to the door, gave him an opportunity of 
observing, as she leant over her guitar, the 
most exquisite shoulders and the prettiest- 
shaped head in the world. With graceful 
confusion she rose to greet him, and her long 
eyelashes fell over eyes black and brilliant as 
those that awakened the furore of two con¬ 
tinents—the eyes of Lola Montez. She was 
dressed in white; her rich dark hair was held 
in place with combs of gold; her girdle was 
of gold, and so also were the massive bracelets 
on her arms, which—so perfect was their 
symmetry—might well have been fashioned 
by a sculptor. 

Monsieur Paul Nicholas, with the air of a 
prince, escorted her to the dining-room; and over 
champagne, coffee, and liqueurs their friend¬ 
ship grew apace. Some hours later, when 
ensconced together in a cosy retreat on the 
terrace, and the fast disappearing lights in the 
hotel windows warned them it would soon be 
prudent to retire. Mile de Nurrez exclaimed 
with a sigh :— 


200 


WERWOLVES 


“You have told me so much about your¬ 
self, whilst I—I have told you nothing in 
return. Alas ! I have a history. My parents 
are dead—my mother died when I was a baby, 
and my father, who was a very wealthy man— 
having accumulated his money in the business 
of a cork merchant which he carried on for 
years in Portugal—died just six months ago. 
He was on a voyage for his health in the 
Mediterranean, when he formed an acquaint¬ 
ance with a young Hindu, Prince Dajarah 
who soon acquired unbounded influence over 
him. My father died on this voyage, and— 
God forgive my suspicions!—but his death 
was strange and sudden. On opening his will, 
it was found that all his property was left to 
me—but only on the condition that I married 
Prince Dajarah.” 

“ Marry a black man! Mon Dieu, how 
terrible!” Paul Nicholas cried. 

“You are right. It was terrible!” Mile 
de Nurrez went on. “ And if I refused to 
marry Prince Dajarah, he, according to the 
will, would inherit everything. Well, Prince 
Dajarah was persistent; he declared that it 
was my duty to marry him, to fulfil my 
father’s dying wish. It was in vain that I 
implored his mercy—that I told him I could 
never return his affections. And at last, 
finding that upon Prince Dajarah neither 


IN SPAIN 


201 


remonstrance nor reproach had any effect, I 
fled to a town some ten miles distant from 
this hotel, taking with me what money and 
jewellery I possessed. 

“ Alas! he soon discovered my whereabouts, 
and with the sole object of continuing his 
persecution of me, speedily established himself 
in the house—which, unfortunately for me, 
happened to be vacant—next to mine. My 
money is nearly exhausted, I have no re¬ 
sources, and unless some one intervenes, some 
one brave and fearless, some one who really 
loves me, I shall undoubtedly be forced into 
a marriage with this odious wretch. Heavens, 
the bare idea of it is poisonous! You re¬ 
member the two men who paid such marked 
attentions to me a short time ago ? ” 

Paul Nicholas nodded. His emotion was 
such he could not speak. 

“ They both imagined they were in love 
with me. They swore they would confront 
the black tyrant and kill him ; but when they 
were put to the test—when I took them and 
pointed him out to them—they went white as 
a sheet, and—fled.” 

“Why torture me thus?” Paul Nicholas 
cried. “Tell me—only tell me what it is you 
want me to do I ” 

“ Do you love me ? ” 

“ More than my life.” 


202 


WERWOLVES 


“ More than your soul ? ” 

“ More than my soul.” 

“ Will you save me from a fate more horrible 
than death ? ” 

“If I go to Hell for you—yes ! ” Paul said, 
gazing on a face lovely as a dream. 

“You must come with me to his house 
to-morrow then! You must come armed. 
You must kill him.” 

“ Kill him I ” Paul cried, turning pale. 

“ Well.^^” 

“ But it will be murder—assassination.” 

“ Murder, to kill him—a tyrant—a black 
man I Bah 1 Are you too a coward ? ” And 
she sprang to her feet, the veins swelling on 
her white brow, her cheeks colouring, her 
eyes flashing fire, as if she, at least, knew 
not the meaning of fear. “ Sooner than let 
such a wretch inherit my father s wealth,” she 
cried out, “ I will kill him myself—kill him, or 
perish in the attempt.” 

Paul Nicholas encountered the earnest gaze 
of her large, bright eyes, the pleading of her 
beautiful mouth, and the sweetness of her 
breath fanned his nostrils. A terrific wave 
of passion swept over him. He loved as he 
had never loved before—as he had never 
deemed it possible to love : and in his mad 
worship of the woman he believed to be as 
pure as she was fair, he forgot that the 


IN SPAIN 


203 


devil hides safest where he is least suspected. 
Seizing her small white hands in his, he swore 
upon them to do her will; and he would 
have gone on making all sorts of wild, im¬ 
passioned speeches had not Mile de Nurrez 
reminded him that it was past locking-up time. 

She crossed the main hall of the hotel 
with him, and as she turned to bid him good 
night prior to ascending to her quarters, her 
eyes met his—met his in one long, lingering 
glance that he assured himself could only have 
meant love. 

Next morning the guests in the hotel re¬ 
ceived another shock. Mile de Nurrez had 
gone off again—this time with Monsieur 
Paul Nicholas—that good-looking, well-to-do 
young man, at whom all the matrons with 
marriageable daughters had in vain cast 
longing eyes. 

Now, although Paul Nicholas had little 
knowledge of geography, he could not help 
remarking, as he journeyed with Mile 
Nurrez, that their route was in an exactly 
opposite direction to that leading to the town 
which his companion had named to him as 
her place of residence. He pointed out his 
difficulty, but Mile de Nurrez only laughed. 

“Wait!” she said. “Wait and see. We 
shall get there all right. You must trust to 
my wit.” 


204 


WERWOLVES 


Paul Nicholas made no further comment. 
He was already in the seventh heaven—that 
was enough for him ; and leaning back, he 
continued gazing at her profile. 

The afternoon passed away, the sun sank, 
and night and its shadows moved solemnly on 
them. Gradually the roadside trees became 
distinguishable only as deeper masses of 
shadow, and Paul Nicholas could only tell 
they were trees by the peculiar sodden odour 
that, from time to time, sluggishly flowed in 
at the open window of the carriage. Of 
necessity, they were proceeding slowly—the 
road was for the most part uphill, and the horses, 
though tough and hardy natives of the moun¬ 
tains, had begun to show signs of flagging. 
They did not pass by a soul, and even the 
sighs of astonished cattle, whose ruminating 
slumbers they had routed, at last became 
events of the greatest rarity. At each yard 
they advanced the wildness of the country 
increased, and although the landscape was 
hidden, its influence was felt. Paul Nicholas 
knew, as well as if he had seen them, that 
he was in the presence of grotesque, isolated 
boulders, wide patches of bare, desolate soil, 
gaunt trees, and profound straggling fissures. 

Being so long confined in a limited space, 
although in that space was a paradise, he 
felt the exquisite agony of cramp, and when. 


IN SPAIN 


205 


after sundry attempts to stretch himself, he 
at length found a position that afforded him 
temporary relief, it was only to become aware 
of a more refined species of torture. The 
springs of the carriage rising and falling 
regularly, produced a rhythmical beat, which 
began to painfully absorb his attention, and 
to slowly merge into a senseless echo of one 
of his observations to Mile de Nurrez. And 
when he was becoming reconciled to this 
inferno, another forced itself upon him. How’ 
quiet the driver was ! Was there any driver ? 
He couldn’t see any. Possibly, nay, probably 
—why not ?—the driver was lying gagged 
and bound on the roadside, and a bandit, one 
of the notorious Spanish bandits, against 
whom his friends in Paris had so emphatically 
warned him, was on the box driving him to 
his obscure lair in the heart of the mountains. 
Or was the original driver himself a bandit, 
and the beautiful girl reclining on the cushions 
a bandit’s daughter.^ He dozed, and on 
coming to his waking senses again, discovered 
that the darkness had slightly lifted. He 
could see the distant horizon, defined by inky 
woods, outlined on a lighter sky. A few stars, 
scattered here and there in this tableau, whilst 
emphasizing the vastness of the space over¬ 
head—a vastness that was positively annihil¬ 
ating—at the same time conveyed a sense of 


206 


WERWOLVES 


solitude and loneliness, in perfect harmony 
with the trees, and rocks, and gorges. The 
effect was only transitory, for with a suddenness 
almost reminding one of stage mechanism, the 
moon burst through its temporary covering of 
clouds, and in a moment the whole country¬ 
side was illumined with a soft white glow. 
It was a warm night, and the breeze that 
rolled down from the mountain peaks, so 
remote and passionless, was charged to over¬ 
flowing with resinous odours, mingled with 
which, and just strong enough to be recogniz¬ 
able, was the faint, pungent smell of decay. 
A couple of hares, looking somewhat ashamed 
of themselves, sprang into upright positions, 
and with frightened whisks of their tails 
disappeared into a clump of ferns. With a 
startled hiss a big snake drew back under 
cover of a boulder, and a hawk, balked of 
its prey by the sudden brilliant metamorphosis, 
uttered an indignant croak. But none of 
these protests against the moon’s innocent 
behaviour were heeded by Paul Nicholas, 
whose whole attention was riveted on a large 
sombre building standing close by the side 
of the road. At the first glimpse of the place, 
so huge, grim, and silent, he was seized with 
a sensation of absolute terror. Nothing 
mortal could surely inhabit such a house. The 
dark, frowning walls and vacant, eye-like 


IN SPAIN 


207 


windows threw back a thousand shadows, and 
suggested as many eerie fancies—fancies that 
were corroborated by a fe^ rank sedges and 
two or three white trunks of decayed trees 
that rose up on either side of the building; 
but of life—human life—there was not the 
barest suspicion. 

“What a nightmare of a house!” Paul 
Nicholas exclaimed, gazing with a shudder 
upon the remodelled and inverted images of 
the grey sedge, the ghastly tree-stems, and 
the vacant, eye-like windows in a black and 
lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre along 
the edge of the wood. 

“Its where he lives!” Mile de Nurrez 
whispered. 

“ What! do you mean to say that it is to this 
house you have brought me ? ” Paul shrieked. 
“ To this awful, deserted ghostly mansion ! 
Why have you lied to me ? ” 

“ 1 was afraid you wouldn’t care to come 
if I described the place too accurately,” Mile 
de Nurrez said. “ Forgive me—and pity me, 
too, for it is here that Prince Dajarah would 
have me spend my life.” 

Paul trembled. 

“ For God’s sake, don’t desert me ! ” Mile 
de Nurrez exclaimed, laying her hand softly 
on his shoulder. “ Think of the terrible fate 
that will befall me! Think of your promises, 
your vows ! ” 


208 


WEKWOLYES 


But Paul Nicholas did not respond all at once. 
His brain was in a whirl. He had been 
deceived, cruelly Received! And with what 
motive? Was Mile de Nurrez’s explanation 
genuine ? Could there be anything genuine 
about a girl who told an untruth ? Once a 
liar always a liar! Did not that maxim hold 
good ? Was it not one he had heard repeatedly 
from childhood ? What should he do ? What 
could he do ? He was here, alone with this 
woman and her coachman, in one of the wildest 
and most outlandish regions of Spain. God 
alone knew where! To attempt to return 
would be hopeless—sheer imbecility ; he would 
most certainly get lost on the mountains, and 
perish from hunger and thirst, or fall over some 
precipice, or into the jaws of a bear ; or, at all 
events, come to some kind of an untimely end. 
No! there was no alternative, he must remain 
and trust in Mile de Nurrez. But the house 
was appalling ; he did not like looking at it, 
and the bare thought of its interior froze his 
blood. Then he awoke to the fact that she 
was still addressing him, that her soft hands 
were lying on his, that her beautiful eyes were 
gazing entreatingly at him, that her full ripe 
lips were within a few inches of his own. The 
moon lent her its glamour, and his old love 
reasserting itself with quick, tempestuous force, 
he drew her into his arms and kissed her 


IN SPAIN 


209 


repeatedly. Some minutes later and they 
had crossed the threshold of the mansion. All 
was as he had pictured it—grim and hushed, 
and bathed in moonbeams. 

The coachman led the way, and with muffled, 
stealthy footstep conducted them across dark 
halls and along intricate passages, up long and 
winding staircases—all bare and cold ; through 
vast gloomy rooms, the walls and floors of 
which were of black oak, the former richly 
carved, and in places hung with ancient 
tapestry, displaying the most grotesque and 
startling devices. The windows, long, narrow, 
and pointed, with trellised panes, were at so 
great a height from the ground that the light 
was limited, and whilst certain spots were 
illuminated, many of the remoter angles and 
recesses were left in total darkness. Monsieur 
Paul Nicholas did not attempt to explore. At 
each step he took he fully anticipated a some¬ 
thing, too dreadful to imagine, would spring 
out on him. The rustling of drapery and the 
rattling of phantasmagoric armorial trophies, in 
response to the vibration of their footsteps, 
made his hair stand on end, and he was 
reduced to a state of the most abject terror 
long before they arrived at their destination. 

At last he was ushered into a small, bare, 
dimly lighted room. From the centre of the 
ceiling was suspended an oil lamp, and imme- 


210 


WERWOLVES 


diately under it was a marble table. Walls 
and floor were composed of rough uncovered 
granite. The atmosphere was fetid, and 
tainted with the same peculiar, pungent odour 
noticeable outside. 

“ This is the room,” Mile de Nurrez said. 
“ Prince Dajarah will be here in a minute. 
Have you your pistol ready ? ” 

“ Yes, see ! ” and Paul Nicholas pulled it out 
from his coat-pocket and showed it her. 

“ Have you any other weapons ? ” she asked, 
examining it curiously. 

“Yes, a sheath-knife,” Paul Nicholas replied 
a trifle nervously. 

“ Let me look at it,” Mile de Nurrez ex¬ 
claimed. “ I have a weakness for knives—a 
rather uncommon trait in a woman, isn’t it?” 

He handed it to her, and she fingered the 
blade cautiously. Then with a sudden move¬ 
ment she leaped away from him. 

“ Fool! ” she cried. “ Do you think I could 
ever love a man as fat as you ? The story 
I told you was a lie from beginning to end. 
I don’t remember either of my parents—my 
mother ran away from home when I was two, 
and my father died the following year. I 
married entirely of my own free will—married 
the man I loved, and he—happened to be 
a werwolf! ” 

“A werwolf!” Paul Nicholas shrieked. 


IN SPAIN 


211 


“ God help me! I thought there were no 
such things ! ” 

“ Not in France, perhaps,” Mile de Nurrez 
said derisively ; “ but in Spain, in the Pyrenees, 
many! At certain times of the year my 
husband won’t touch animal food, and if I didn’t 
procure him human flesh he would die of star¬ 
vation, or in sheer despair eat me. Here he is.” 

And as she spoke the door opened, and on 
the threshold stood a singularly handsome 
young man clad in the gay uniform of a 
Carlist general. 

Capital! ” he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on 
Paul. “ Magnificent! He is quite as fat as the 
other two. How clever of you, darling! ” and 
throwing his arms round her, he embraced her 
tenderly. A few seconds later and he suddenly 
thrust her from him. 

Quick ! quick! ” he cried. “ Run away, dar¬ 
ling ! run away instantly. I can feel myself chang¬ 
ing ! ” and he pushed her gently to the door. 

Mile de Nurrez took one glance at Paul as 
she left the room. “ Poor fool! ” she said, half 
pityingly, half mockingly. “ Poor fat fool! 
Though you may no longer believe in women 
you will certainly believe in werwolves—now.” 
And as the door slammed after her, the wildest 
of shrieks from within demonstrated that, for 
once in her life. Mile de Nurrez had spoken 
the truth. 


CHAPTER XIII 

THE WERWOLF IN BELGIUM AND THE 
NETHERLANDS 

B elgium abounds in stories of wer¬ 
wolves, all more or less of the same 
type. As in France, the werwolf, in 
Belgium, is not restricted to one sex, but is, in 
an equal proportion, common to both. 

By far the greater number of werwolfery 
cases in this country are to be met with 
amongst the sand-dunes on the sea coast. 
They also occur in the district of the Sambre; 
but I have never heard of any lycanthropous 
streams or pools in Belgium, nor yet of any 
wolf-producing flowers, such as are, at times, 
found in the Balkan Peninsula. 

Though the property of lycanthropy here as 
elsewhere has been acquired through the invo¬ 
cation of spirits—the ceremony being much the 
same as that described in an earlier chapter— 
nearly all the cases of werwolfery in Belgium 
are hereditary. 


212 


IN BELGIUM 


213 


In Belgium, as in other Roman Catholic 
countries, great faith is attached to exorcism, 
and for the expulsion of every sort of “evil 
spirit” various methods of exorcism are em¬ 
ployed. For example, a werwolf is sprinkled 
with a compound either of J ounce of sulphur, 4 
drachms of asafoetida, J ounce of castoreum ; or 
of I ounce of hypericum in 3 ounces of vinegar; or 
with a solution of carbolic acid further diluted 
with a pint of clear spring water. The sprinkling 
must be done over the head and shoulders, and 
the werwolf must at the same time be addressed 
in his Christian name. But as to the success 
or non-success of these various methods of 
exorcism I cannot make any positive statement. 
I have neither sufficient evidence to affirm their 
efficacy nor to deny it. Rye and mistletoe 
are considered safeguards against werwolves, 
as is also a sprig from a mountain ash. This 
latter tree, by the way, attracts evil spirits in 
some countries—Ireland, India, Spain, for in¬ 
stance—and repels them in others. It was 
held in high esteem, as a preservative against 
phantasms and witches, by the Druids, and it 
may to this day be seen growing, more fre¬ 
quently than any other, in the neighbourhood 
of Druidical circles, both in Great Britain and 
on the Continent. 

In many parts of Belgium the peasantry 
would not consider their house safe unless a 


214 


WEKWOLVES 


mountain ash were growing within a few feet 
of it. 

A Case of Werwolves in the Ardennes 

A case of werwolfery is reported to have 
happened, not so long ago, in the Ardennes. 
A young man, named Bernard Vernand, was 
returning home one night from his work in the 
fields, when his dog suddenly began to bark 
savagely, whilst its hair stood on end. The 
next moment there was a crackle in the hedge 
by the roadside, and three trampish-looking 
men slouched out. They looked at Vernand, 
and, remarking that it was beautiful weather, 
followed closely at his heels. 

Vernand noticed that the eyebrows of all 
three met in a point over their noses, a pecu¬ 
liarity which gave them a very singular and 
unpleasant appearance. When he quickened 
his pace, they quickened theirs; whilst his dog 
still continued to bark and show every indica¬ 
tion of excessive fear. In this way they all 
four proceeded till they came to a very dark 
spot in the road, where the trees nearly met 
overhead. The sound of their footsteps then 
suddenly ceased, and Vernand, peeping stealthily 
round, perceived to his horror lurid eyes—that 
were not the eyes of human beings—glaring 
after him. His dog took to its heels and fled, 
and, ignominious though he felt it to be, Ver- 


IN BELGIUM 


215 


nand followed suit. The next moment there 
was a chorus of piercing whines, and a loud 
pattering of heavy feet announced the fact that 
he was pursued. 

Fortunately Vernand was a fast runner—he 
had carried off many prizes in races at the 
village fair—and now that he was running for 
his life, he went like the wind. 

But his pursuers were fleet of foot, too, and, 
despite his pace, they gradually gained on him. 
Happily for Vernand, he retained a certain 
amount of presence of mind, and possessing 
rather more wit than many of the peasants, he 
suddenly bethought him of a possible avenue of 
escape. In a conversation with the pastor of the 
village some months before, the latter had told 
him how an old woman had once escaped from 
a wode ^ by climbing up a mountain ash. And 
if, reasoned Vernand, the ash is a protection 
against one form of evil spirits, why not against 
another ? He recollected that there was an ash- 
tree close at hand, and diverting his course, he 
instantly headed for it. Not a moment too 
soon. As he swarmed up the slender trunk, his 
pursuers—three monstrous werwolves—came to 
a dead halt at the foot of the tree. However, 
after giving vent to the disappointment of losing 

* A phantom horseman, that goes hunting on certain 
nights in the year, accompanied by phantom dogs. The 
author has witnessed the phenomenon himself. 


216 


WERWOLVES 


their supper in a series of prodigious howls, 
they veered round and bounded off, doubtless 
in pursuit of a less knowing prey. 

A Similar Case near Waterloo 

A similar case once happened to a young 
man when returning trom Quatre Bras to 
Waterloo. He was attacked by three wer¬ 
wolves and saved himself by leaping into a 
rye-field. 

A Case on the Sand-dunes 

The following story of werwolfery is of tradi¬ 
tional authenticity only :— 

Von Grumboldt, a young man of good 
appearance, and his sweetheart, Nina Cosset, 
were out walking together one evening on the 
sand-dunes near Nina’s home, when Von Grum¬ 
boldt uttered an exclamation of astonishment, 
and bending down, picked up something which 
he excitedly showed to Nina. It was a girdle 
composed of dark, plaited hair fastened with a 
plain gold buckle. To the young man’s sur¬ 
prise Nina shrank away from it. 

“Oh!” she cried, “don’t touch it! I don’t 
know why—but it gives me such a horrid 
impression. I’m sure there is an unpleasant 
history attached to it.” 

“Pooh!” Von Grumboldt said laughingly; 
“ that’s only your fancy. I think it would 


IN BELGIUM 


217 


look remarkably well round your waist,” and he 
made pretence to encircle her with it. 

Nina, turning very white, fainted, and Von 
Grumboldt, who was really very much in love 
with her, was greatly alarmed. He ran to a 
brook, fetched some water, and sprinkled her 
forehead with it. To his intense relief his 
sweetheart soon came to. As soon as she 
could speak she implored him, as he valued her 
life, on no account to touch her with the girdle. 
To this request Von Grumboldt readily assented, 
and whistling to his dog—a big collie—in spite 
of Nina’s protests and the animal’s frantic 
struggles, he playfully fastened the belt round 
the creature’s body. Then turning to Nina he 
began : “ Doesn’t Nippo (that was the collie’s 

name) look fine-” and suddenly left off. 

The expression in Nina’s eyes made his blood 
run cold. 

“For Heaven’s sake,” he cried, “what is 
it ? What’s the matter ? ” 

White as death again, Nina pointed a finger, 
and Von Grumboldt, looking in the direction 
she indicated, saw—not Nippo, but an awfuF 
looking thing in Nippo’s place—a big black 
object, partly dog and partly some other 
animal, that grew and grew until, within a few 
seconds, it had grown to at least thrice Nippo’s 
size. With a hideous howl it rushed at Von 
Grumboldt. The latter, though a strong ath- 



218 


WERWOLVES 


letic young man, was speedily overcome, and 
being dashed to the ground, would soon have 
been torn to pieces had not Nina, recovering 
from a temporary helplessness, come to the 
rescue. 

Catching hold of the girdle round the 
creature s body, she unclasped the buckle, and 
in a trice the evil thing had vanished ; and there 
was Nippo, his own self, standing before them. 

“It is a werwolf belt!” Nina exclaimed, 
throwing it away from her. “You see, I was 
right; it is devilish, and no doubt belongs to 
some one near here who practises Black Magic— 
Mad Valerie, perhaps. This cross that I wear 
round my neck, which is made of yew, no 
doubt warned me of this danger and so saved 
me from an awful fate. You smile I—but I am 
certain of it. The yew-tree is just as efficacious 
in the case of evil spirits as the ash! ” 

“ What shall we do with the beastly thing.? ” 
Von Grumboldt asked. “ It doesn’t seem right 
to leave it here, in case some one else, with less 
sense than you, should find it and a dreadful 
catastrophe result.” 

“ We must burn it,” Nina said. “ That’s the 
only way of getting rid of the evil influence. 
Let us do so at once.” 

Von Grumboldt was nothing loath, and in a 
few minutes all that remained of the lycanthro- 
pous girdle was a tiny heap of ashes. 


IN BELGIUM 


219 


To burn the object to which the lycanthro- 
pous property is attached is the only recognized 
method of destroying that property. I have 
had many proofs, too, of the efficacy of burning 
in the case of superphysical influences other 
than lycanthropy ; such, for example, as haunted 
furniture, trees, and buildings ; and I am quite 
sure the one and only way to get rid of an 
occult presence attached to any particular object 
is to burn that object. 

I have been told of “ burning ” having been 
successfully practised in the following cases :— 

Case No. i.—A barrow in the North of 
England that had long been haunted 
by a Barrowian order of Elemental. (The 
barrow was excavated, and when the 
remains therein had been burnt, the haunt- 
ings ceased.) 

Case No. 2.—A cave in Wales haunted by 
the phantasm of a horse, though, whether 
the real spirit of the horse or merely an 
Elemental I cannot say. (On the soil in 
the cave being excavated, and the several 
skeletons, presumably of prehistoric ani¬ 
mals, found being burnt, there were no 
longer any disturbances.) 

Case No. 3.—A house in London containing 
an oak chest, attached to which was the 
phantasm of an old woman, who used to 


220 


WERWOLVES 


disturb the inmates of the place nightly. 
(On the chest being burnt she was seen 
no more.) 

Case No. 4.—A tree in Ireland, haunted 
every night by a Vagrarian. (Immedi¬ 
ately after the tree had been burnt the 
manifestations ceased.) 

Burial is a great mistake. As long as a 
single bone remains, the spirit of the dead 
person may still be attracted to it, and conse¬ 
quently remain earthbound; but when the 
corpse is cremated, and the ashes scattered 
abroad, then the spirit is set free. And, for this 
reason alone, I advocate cremation as the best 
method possible of dealing with a corpse. 

Before concluding this chapter on the wer¬ 
wolf in Belgium, let me add that wxrwolfery 
was not the only form of lycanthropy in that 
country. According to Grimm, in his “ Deutsche 
Sagen,” two warlocks who were executed in 
the year 1810 at Li^ge for having, under the 
form of werwolves, killed and eaten several 
children, had as their colleague a boy of 
twelve years of age. The boy, in the form of 
a raven, consumed those portions of the prey 
which the warlocks left. 

Werwolves in the Netherlands 

Cases of werwolves are of less frequent 
occurrence in Holland than in either France 


IN BELGIUM 


221 


or Belgium. Also, they are almost entirely 
restricted to the male sex. 

Exorcism here is seldom practised, the 
working of a spell being the usual means 
employed for getting rid of the evil property. 
The procedure in working the spell is as 
follows:— 

First of all, a night when the moon is in the 
full is selected. Then at twelve o’clock the 
werwolf is seized, securely bound, and taken to 
an isolated spot. Here, a circle of about seven 
feet in diameter is carefully inscribed on the 
ground, and in the exact centre of it the wer¬ 
wolf is placed, and so fastened that he cannot 
possibly get away. Then three girls—always 
girls—come forward armed with ash twigs with 
which they flog him most unmercifully, calling 
out as they do so :— 

“ Grey wolf ugly, grey wolf old. 

Do at once as you are told. 

Leave this man and fly away— 

Right away, far away, 

Where ’tis night and never day.” 

They keep on repeating these words and 
whipping him ; and it is not until the face, 
back, and limbs of the werwolf are covered with 
blood that they desist. 

The oldest person present then comes 
forward and gives the werwolf a hearty kick, 
saying as he (or she) does so :— 


222 


WERWOLVES 


“Go, fly, away to the sky ; 

Devil of greywolf, thee we defy. 

Out, out, with a howl and yell, 

’Twill carry thee faster and surer to hell.” 

Every one present then dips a cup or mug in 
a concoction of sulphur, tar, vinegar, and 
castoreum, just removed from boiling-point, 
and, forming a circle round the werwolf, they 
souse him all over with this unpleasant and 
painfully hot mixture, calling out as they 
do so :— 

“ Away, away, shoo, shoo, shoo! 

Do you think we care a jot for you? 

We’ll whip thee again, with a crack, crack, crack ! 

Scourge thee and beat thee till thou art black; 

Fool of a greywolf, we have thee at last. 

Back to thy hell home, out of him fast— 

Fast, fast, fast! 

Our patience won’t last. 

We’ll scratch thee, we’ll prick thee. 

We’ll prod thee, we’ll scald thee. 

Fast, fast, out of him, fast! ' 

They keep on shouting these words over and 
over again till the liquid has given out and the 
clock strikes one; when, with a final blow or 
kick at the prostrate werwolf, they run away. 

The evil spirit is then said to leave the man, 
w'ho quickly recovers his proper shape, and 
with a loud cry of joy rushes after his friends 
and relations. 

When the Spaniards invaded Holland they 


IN BELGIUM 


223 


resorted to a surer, if a somewhat more drastic, 
mode of getting rid of lycanthropy—they 
burned the subject possessed of it. 

One of the best known cases of a werwolf in 
the Netherlands is as follows :— 

A young man, whilst on his way to a shoot¬ 
ing match at Rousse, was suddenly startled by 
hearing loud screams for help proceeding from 
a field a few yards distant. To jump a dike 
and scramble over a low wall was but the work 
of a few seconds, and in less time than it takes 
to tell, the young man, whose name was Van 
Renner, found himself face to face with a huge 
grey wolf. Quick as thought, he fitted an 
arrow to his bow, and shot. The missile struck 
the wolf in the side, and with a howl of pain 
the wounded creature turned tail and fled for 
his life. 

All might now have ended like some delight¬ 
ful romance, for the rescued one proved to 
be an exceedingly attractive maiden, with 
bright yellow hair and big blue eyes; but 
unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately, who 
knows —the girl had a husband, and Van 
Renner a wife ; and so, instead of the incident 
being the prelude to a love affair, it was 
merely an occasion for grateful acknowledg¬ 
ment—and—farewell. On his return home that 
evening Van Renner was met with an urgent 
request to visit his friend, the Burgomaster. 


224 


WERWOLVES 


He hastened to obey the summons, and found 
the Burgomaster in bed, suffering agonies 
of pain from a wound which he had received 
in his side some hours previously. 

“ I can’t die without telling you,” he 
whispered, clutching Van Renner by the 
hand. “God help me, I’m a werwolf! I’ve 
always been one. It’s in my family—it’s 
hereditary. It was your arrow that has 
wounded me fatally.” 

Van Renner was too aghast to speak. He 
was really fond of the Burgomaster, and to 
think of him a werwolf—well 1 it was too 
dreadful to contemplate. The dying man 
gazed eagerly, hungrily, piteously into his 
friend’s face. 

“ Don’t say you hate me,” he cried. “ There 
is little hope for me, if any, in the next world ; 
and in all probability I shall either go direct 
to hell or remain earthbound ; but, for God’s 
sake, let me die in the knowledge that I leave 
behind me at least one friend I ” 

Van Renner tried hard to speak; he made 
every effort to speak ; his lungs swelled, his 
tongue wobbled, the muscles of his lips 
twitched; but not a syllable could he utter 
—and the Burgomaster died. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE WERWOLVES AND MARAS 
OF DENMARK 

S INCE so much has already been written 
upon the subject of werwolves in Den¬ 
mark, it is my intention only to touch 
upon it briefly. It is, I believe, generally 
acknowledged that, at one time, werwolves 
were to be met with almost daily in Den¬ 
mark, and that they were almost always of 
the male sex ; but I can find no records of 
any particular form of exorcism practised by 
the Danes with the object of getting rid of 
the werwolf, nor of any spell used by them 
for the same purpose; neither does there 
appear to be, amongst their traditions, any 
reference to a lycanthropous flower or stream. 
Opinions differ as to whether werwolves are 
yet to be found in Denmark, but, from all I 
have heard, I am inclined to think that they 
still exist in the more remote districts of 
that country. 


226 


WERWOLVES 


The following case may be regarded as 
illustrative of a typical Danish werwolf :— 

The Case of Peter Andersen, Werwolf 

Peter Andersen, who was a werwolf by 
descent, his ancestors having been werwolves 
for countless generations, fell in love with a 
beautiful young girl named Elisa, and without 
telling her he was a werwolf, for fear that she 
would give him up, married her. 

Shortly after his marriage, he was returning 
home one evening with Elisa from a neigh¬ 
bouring fair, where there had been much 
merrymaking, when, suddenly feeling that 
the metamorphosis was coming on, he got 
down from the cart in which they were 
driving, and said to his wife, very earnestly, 
“If anything comes towards you, do not be 
afraid, and do not hurt it; merely strike it 
with your apron.” He then ran off at a 
great rate into the fields, leaving Elisa very 
much surprised and impressed. A few minutes 
afterwards she heard the howl of a wild animal, 
and, while she was holding in the horse and 
endeavouring to pacify it, a huge grey wolf 
suddenly leaped into the road and sprang 
at her. 

Recollecting what her husband had told 
her, with wonderful presence of mind she 
whipped off her apron and struck the wolf 



AND MARAS OF DENMARK 


227 


in the face with it. The animal tore at the 
apron, and biting a piece out of it, turned 
tail and ran away. Some time afterwards 
Andersen returned, and holding out to Elisa 
the missing piece of her apron, asked if she 
guessed how he came by it. 

“ Good God, man! ” Elisa cried, the pupils 
of her eyes dilating with terror, “ it was you! 
I know it by the expression in your face. 
Heaven preserve me! You’re a werwolf!” 

“ I was a werwolf,” Peter said, “ but thanks 
to your brave action in throwing the apron in 
my face, I am one no longer. I know I did 
wrong in not telling you of my misfortune 
before we were married, but I dreaded the 
idea of losing you. Forgive me, forgive me, 
I implore you ! ” and Elisa, after some slight 
hesitation, granted his request. 

This method of getting rid of the lycan- 
thropous spirit seems to have been (and still 
to be) the one most in vogue in Denmark. 

Another well-known story, of a similar 
kind, is to the effect that while a party of 
haymakers were at work in a field, a man, 
who, like Andersen, had kept the fact of his 
being a werwolf from his family, feeling that 
he was about to be transmuted, gave his son 
injunctions that if an animal approached him 
he was on no account to hurt it, but merely 
to throw his hat at it. The boy promising 


228 


WERWOLVES 


to obey, the father hastily left the field. Some 
minutes later a grey wolf appeared, swimming 
a stream. It rushed at the boy, who, mad 
with terror, forgot his father’s instructions, and 
struck at it with a pitchfork. 

The prongs of the fork, entering the wolfs 
side, pierced its heart; and transmutation again 
taking place, to the horror of all present there 
lay on the ground, not the body of a beast, but 
the corpse of the boy’s father. 

In Denmark it is said that if a woman 
stretches between four sticks the membrane 
of a newly born foal, and creeps through it 
naked, she will bring forth children without 
pain, but all the boys will be werwolves and 
the girls maras. 

As is the case with the werwolf of other 
countries, the Danish werwolf retains its human 
form by day; but after sunset, unlike the 
werwolf of any other nationality, it sometimes 
adopts the shape of a dog on three legs before 
it finally metamorphoses into a wolf. 

In addition to these methods (alluded to 
above) of expelling a lycanthropous spirit in 
Denmark, there may be added that of address¬ 
ing the obsessed person as a werwolf and 
reproaching him roundly. But as I have no 
proof of the effectiveness of this crude mode 
of exorcism, I cannot commit myself to any 
verdict with regard to it. 



AND MARAS OF DENMARK 229 


Maras 

The mara, to which I have briefly alluded in 
a foregoing chapter, is to be met with in Den¬ 
mark almost as often as the werwolf; and the 
superphysical property, characteristic of the 
mara no less than of the werwolf, justifies me 
in a somewhat detailed description of the 
former here. 

A mara is popularly understood to be a 
woman by day and at night a spirit that tor¬ 
ments human beings and horses by sitting 
astride them and causing them nightmare. 

In the main I agree with this definition; 
though I am inclined to think that the mara 
is, in reality, less hoydenish and more subtle 
and complex than public opinion would have 
us believe. In all probability maras are women 
who have either inherited or, by the practice 
of Black Magic, acquired the faculty of a 
certain species of projection—difiering from 
the projection which is common to both sexes 
in the following points, viz., that it can always 
be accomplished (during certain hours) at will; 
that it is invariably practised with the sole 
desire to do ill ; that the projected spirit is 
fully conscious of all that is happening around 
it; and that it possesses most—if not all—ot 
the faculties, motives, and nervous suscepti¬ 
bilities of the physical body. 


230 


WERWOLVES 


Whatever may be the character of the mara 
by day, she is essentially mischievous by night 
—owing, no doubt, to the fact that this faculty 
of projection has come to her through the 
occult powers inimical to man. 

From the complexity of their nature, maras 
present the same difficulty of classification as 
werwolves—both are human, both are Ele¬ 
mental, and consequently both are an anomaly. 

The belief in maras is still prevalent in all 
parts of Scandinavia, including Jutland, whence 
comes the following case which I quote for the 
purpose of comparison. 

A Case of a Mara in Jutland 

Some reapers in a field, near a village in 
Jutland, came one evening upon a naked 
woman lying under a hedge, apparently asleep. 
Much surprised, they regarded her closely, and 
at length coming to the conclusion that her sleep 
was not natural, they summoned a shepherd 
who was generally regarded as very intelligent. 
On seeing the woman the shepherd at once 
said, “ She is not a real person, though she 
looks like one. She is a mara, and has stripped 
for the purpose of riding some one to-night.” 
At this there was loud laughter, and the 
reapers said, “Tell us another, Eric. A mara 
indeed ! If this isn’t a woman, our mothers are 
not women, for she is just as much of flesh and 


AND MARAS OF DENMARK 231 


blood as they are.’* “All right,” the shepherd 
replied, “ wait and see.” And bending over 
her, he whispered something in her ear, where¬ 
upon a queer little animal about two inches 
long came out of the grass, and running up her 
body, disappeared in her mouth. Then Eric 
pushed her, and she rolled over three times, 
then sprang to her feet, and with a wild startled 
cry leaped a high bush and disappeared. Nor 
could they, when they ran to the other side of 
the bush, find any traces of her. 

Another recorded case is the following : 

The Mara of Vilvorde 

Christine Jansen had two lovers—Nielsen 
and Osdeven. Nielsen, who was a very good- 
looking young man, began to suffer from night¬ 
mare. He had the most appalling dreams of 
being strangled and suffocated, and they at last 
grew so frightful, and proved such a strain on 
his nerves, that he was forced to consult a 
doctor. The doctor attributed the cause to 
indigestion, and prescribed a special diet for 
him. But it was all of no avail; the bad 
dreams still continued, and Nielsen’s health 
became more and more impaired. 

At length, when he was almost worn out, 
having spent the greater part of many nights 
reading instead of sleeping, in order to avoid 


232 


WERWOLVES 


the frightful visions, he happened to mention 
his insufferable condition to Osdeven. Far 
from ridiculing his rival, Osdeven, with great 
earnestness, encouraged him to relate every¬ 
thing that had happened to him in his sleep ; 
and when Nielsen had done so, exclaimed, “ I’ll 
tell you what it is—these dreams you have 
are not ordinary nightmares; they are due 
to a mara—I know their type well.” 

“ To a mara! ” Nielsen cried ; “ how ridicu¬ 
lous ! Why not say to a mise—or—grim It 
would be equally sensible ; they are all idle 
superstitions.” 

“ So you say now,” Osdeven rejoined, “but 
wait! When you get into bed to-night, lie on 
your back, and in your right hand hold a sharp 
knife on your breast, the point upwards. 
Remain in this attitude from between eleven 
o’clock till two, and see what happens.” 

Nielsen laughed, but all the same decided to 
do as Osdeven suggested. Night came, and, 
knife in hand, he lay in his bed. 

Minutes passed, and nothing happening, he 
was beginning to think what a fool he was for 
wasting his time thus, when suddenly he per¬ 
ceived bending over him the luminous figure 
of a beautiful nude woman, whom, to his utter 
astonishment, he identified as Christine Jansen 
—Christine Jansen in all but expression. The 
expression in the eyes he now looked into was 


AND MARAS OF DENMARK 


233 


not human—it was hellish. The figure got on 
the bed and was in the act of sitting astride 
him, when it came in contact with the knife. 
Then it uttered a frightful scream of baffled 
rage and pain, and vanished. 

Nielsen, shaking with terror and dreading 
another visitation, struck a light. The point 
of his knife was dripping with blood. 

An hour later, overcome with weariness, he 
fell asleep, and for the first time for weeks his 
slumber was sound and undisturbed. Awak¬ 
ing in the morning much refreshed, he would 
have attributed his experience to imagination 
or to a dream, had it not been for the spots of 
blood on the bedclothes and the stains on his 
knife, and this evidence, as to the reality of 
what had happened, was strengthened by his 
discovery of certain circumstances in connex¬ 
ion with Miss Jansen, towards whom his senti¬ 
ments had now undergone a complete change. 

Curious to learn if anything had befallen her, 
he made cautious inquiries, and was informed 
that owing to a sudden indisposition — the 
nature of which was carefully hidden from 
him—she had been ordered abroad, where, in 
all probability, she would remain indefinitely. 

Nielsen now had no more nightmare, and he 
and Osdeven, becoming firm friends, agreed 
that the next time they fell in love they would 
take good care it was not with a mara. 


234 


WERWOLVES 


Another method of getting rid of maras was 
to sprinkle the air with sand, at the same time 
uttering a brief incantation. For example, in 
a village on the borders of Schleswig-Holstein, 
a woman who suffered agonies from nightmare 
consulted a man locally reported to be well 
versed in occult matters. 

“ Make your mind easy,” said this man, after 
she had described her dreams to him ; “ I will 
soon put an end to your disturbances. It is 
a mara that is tormenting you. Don’t be 
frightened if she suddenly manifests herself 
when I sprinkle this sand, for there will be 
nothing very alarming in her appearance, and 
she won’t be able to harm you.” He then 
proceeded to scatter several handfuls about 
the room, repeating as he did so a brief 
incantation. 

He was still occupied thus, when, without 
a moment’s warning, the figure of a very tall, 
naked woman appeared crouching on the bed. 
With a yell of rage she leaped on to the floor, 
her eyes flashing, and her lips twitching con¬ 
vulsively ; and raising her hands as if she 
would like to scratch the incantator’s face to 
pieces, she rushed furiously at him. 

Far from being intimidated, however, he 
quite coolly dashed a handful of sand in her 
eyes, whereupon she instantly disappeared. 
“ Now,” he said, turning to the lady, who was 


AND MARAS OF DENMARK 235 


half dead with terror, “ you won’t have the 
nightmare again ”—which prophecy proved to 
be correct. 

These instances will, I think, suffice to show 
the similarity between werwolves and maras. 
Both anomalies are dependent on properties 
of an entirely baneful nature ; and both proper¬ 
ties are either hereditary, having been estab¬ 
lished in families through the intercourse of 
those families in ages past with the super¬ 
physical Powers inimical to man ; or are capable 
of being acquired through the practice of Black 
Magic. 


CHAPTER XV 

WERWOLVES IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 


S in Denmark, werwolves were once 



so numerous in Norway and Sweden, 


^that these countries naturally came 
to be regarded as the true home of 
lycanthropy. 

With the advent of the tourist, however, 
and the consequent springing up of fresh 
villages, together with the gradual increase of 
native population, Norway and Sweden have 
slowly undergone a metamorphosis, with the 
result that it is now only in the most remote 
districts, such as the northern portion of the 
Kiolen Mountains and the borders of Lapland, 
that werwolves are to be found. 

Here, amid the primitive solitude of vast 
pine forests, flow lycanthropous rivers ; here, 
too, grow lycanthropous shrubs and flowers. 

Werwolfery in Norway and Sweden is not 
confined to one sex ; it is common to both; 
and in these countries various forms of spells, 


236 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 


237 


both for invoking and expelling lycanthropous 
spirits, are current. 

As far as I can gather, a Norwegian or 
Swedish peasant, when he wishes to become 
a werwolf, kneels by the side of a lycanthropous 
stream at midnight, having chosen a night 
when the moon is in the full, and incants some 
such words as these :— 

“ ’Tis night! ’tis night! and the moon shines white 
Over pine and snow-capped hill; 

The shadows stray through burn and brae 
And dance in the sparkling rill. 

“ ’Tis night! ’tis night! and the devil’s light 
Casts glimmering beams around. 

The maras dance, the nisses prance 
On the flower-enamelled ground. 

“ ’Tis night! ’tis night! and the werwolf s might 
Makes man and nature shiver. 

Yet its fierce grey head and stealthy tread 
Are nought to thee, oh river! 

River, river, river. 

“Oh water strong, that swirls along, 

I prithee a werwolf make me. 

Of all things dear, my soul, I swear, 

In death shall not forsake thee.” 

The supplicant then strikes the banks of 
the river three times with his forehead; then 
dips his head into the river thrice, at each 
dip gulping down a mouthful of the water. 


238 


WERWOLVES 


This concludes the ceremony—he has become 
a werwolf, and twenty-four hours later will 
undergo the first metamorphosis. 

Lycanthropous water is said, by those who 
dwell near to it, to differ from other water in 
subtle details only—details that would, in all 
probability, escape the notice of all who were 
not connoisseurs of the superphysical. A 
strange, faint odour, comparable with nothing, 
distinguishes lycanthropous water; there is 
a lurid sparkle in it, strongly suggestive of 
some peculiar, individual life; the noise it 
makes, as it rushes along, so closely resembles 
the muttering and whispering of human voices 
as to be often mistaken for them ; whilst at 
night it sometimes utters piercing screams, 
and howls, and groans, in such a manner as 
to terrify all who pass near it. Dogs and 
horses, in particular, are susceptible to its 
influence, and they exhibit the greatest signs 
of terror at the mere sound of it. 

Another means of becoming a werwolf, 
resorted to by the Swedish and Norwegian 
peasant, consists in the plucking and wearing 
of a lycanthropous flower after sunset, and 
on a night when the moon is in the full. 
Lycanthropous flowers, no less than lycanthro¬ 
pous water, possess properties peculiar to 
themselves; properties which are, probably, 
only discernible to those who are well 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 239 


acquainted with them. Their scent is described 
as faint and subtly suggestive of death, whilst 
their sap is rather offensively white and sticky. 
In appearance they are much the same as 
other flowers, and are usually white and 
yellow. 

Yet another method of acquiring the pro¬ 
perty of lycanthropy consists in making : first, 
a magic circle on the ground, at twelve o’clock, 
on a night when the moon is in the full (there 
is no strict rule as to the magnitude of the 
circle, though one of about seven feet in 
diameter would seem to be the size most 
commonly adopted); then, in the centre of the 
circle, a wood fire, heating thereon an iron 
vessel containing one pint of clear spring water, 
and any seven of the following ingredients : 
hemlock (|- ounce to i ounce), aloe (30 grains), 
opium (2 to drachms), mandrake (i ounce 
to ounces), solanum ounce), poppy seed 
(|- ounce to i ounce), asafoetida (f ounce to 
I ounce), and parsley (2 to 3 ounces). 

Whilst the mixture is heating, the experi¬ 
menter prostrates himself in front of the fire 
and prays to the Great Spirit of the Unknown 
to confer on him the property of metamorphos¬ 
ing, nocturnally, into a werwolf. His prayers 
take no one particular form, but are quite 
extempore; though he usually adds to them 
some such recognised incantation as : — 


240 


WERWOLVES 


“ Come, spirit so powerful! come, spirit so dread. 

From the home of the werwolf, the home of the dead. 

Come, give me thy blessing! come, lend me thine ear! 

Oh spirit of darkness! oh spirit so drear! 

“Come, mighty phantom! come, great Unknown! 

Come from thy dwelling so gloomy and lone. 

Come, I beseech thee; depart from thy lair. 

And body and soul shall be thine, I declare. 

“ Haste, haste, haste, horrid spirit, haste! 

Speed, speed, speed, scaring spirit, speed! 

Fast, fast, fast, fateful spirit, fast! ” 

He then makes the following formal declara¬ 
tion :— 

‘‘ I (here insert name) offer to thee. Great 
Spirit of the Unknown, this night (here insert 
date), my body and soul, on condition that 
thou grantest me, from this night to the hour 
of my death, the power of metamorphosing, 
nocturnally, into a wolf. I beg, I pray, I 
implore thee—thee, unparalleled Phantom of 
Darkness, to make me a werwolf—a wer¬ 
wolf!”—and striking the ground three times 
with his forehead, he gets up. As soon as the 
concoction in the vessel is boiling, he dips a 
cup into it, and sprinkles the contents on the 
ground, repeating the action until he has 
sprinkled the whole interior of the circle. 

Then he kneels on the ground close to the 
fire, and in a loud voice cries out, “ Come, oh 
come!” and, if he is fortunate, a phantom 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 


241 


suddenly manifests itself over the fire. Some¬ 
times the phantom is indefinite—a cylindrical, 
luminous, pillar-like thing, about seven feet in 
height, having no discernible features; some¬ 
times it assumes a definite shape, and appears 
either as a monstrous hooded figure with a 
death s head, or as a sub-human, sub-animal 
type of Elemental. 

Whatever form the Unknown adopts, it is 
invariably terrifying. It never speaks, but indi¬ 
cates its assent by stretching out an arm, or what 
serves as an arm, and then disappears. It never 
remains visible for more than half a minute. 
As soon as it vanishes the supplicant, who is 
always half mad with terror, springs from the 
ground and rushes home—or anywhere to get 
again within reach of human beings. By the 
morning, however, all his fears have departed; 
and at sunset he creeps off into the forest, or 
into some equally secluded spot, to experience, 
for the first time, the extraordinary sensations of 
metamorphosing into a wolf, or, perhaps, a semi¬ 
wolf, i.e., a creature half man and half wolf; for 
the degree of metamorphosis varies according 
to locality. The hour of metamorphosis also 
varies according to locality—though it is at 
sunset that the change most usually takes 
place, the transmutation back to man generally 
occurring at dawn. 

When a werwolf, in human shape at the 


242 


WERWOLVES 


time, is killed, he sometimes (not always) 
metamorphoses into a wolf, and if in wolfs 
form at the time he is killed he sometimes (not 
always) metamorphoses into a human being— 
here again the nature of the transmutation 
depending on locality. 

In certain of the forests of Sweden dwell old 
women called Vargamors, who are closely 
allied to werwolves, and exercise complete con¬ 
trol over all the wolves in the neighbourhood, 
keeping the latter well supplied in food. As 
an illustration of the Vargamor I have chosen 
the following story :— 

LiSO OF SOROA 

Liso was thoroughly spoilt. Every one had 
told her how beautiful she was from the 
day she had first learned to walk, and, con¬ 
sequently, it was only natural that when she 
grew up she cared for no one but herself, and 
for nothing so much as gazing at herself in the 
looking-glass and expatiating on the loveliness 
of her own reflection. As a girl at home she 
was allowed to do precisely what she liked— 
neither father nor mother, relatives (with one 
exception) nor friends ever thwarted her ; and 
when she married it was the same: her 
husband bowed down to her, and was always 
ready to indulge her every wish and whim. 

She had three children, two boys and a girl. 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 243 


whom she occasionally condescended to notice; 
but only when there was nothing else at hand 
to entertain her. 

The one person of whom Liso stood in awe 
was her aunt, a rich old lady with distinct views 
of her own, and a vigorous method of express¬ 
ing them. Now, one of the old lady’s peculiar 
ideas—at least peculiar in Liso’s estimation— 
was that woman was made to be man’s help¬ 
mate, and that married women should think of 
their husbands first, their children next, and 
themselves last—an order of consideration 
which Liso thought was exactly the reverse 
of what it should be. 

Had her aunt been poor, it is quite certain 
that Liso would have had nothing whatsoever 
to do with her. But circumstances alter cases. 
This aunt was rich, and, moreover, had no one 
more nearly related to her than Liso. 

One day, in the depth of winter, Liso received 
a letter from her aunt containing a pressing in¬ 
vitation to start off at once on a visit to the 
latter at Skatea, a small town some twelve 
miles from Soroa. “ Bring your children,” so 
the letter ran, “ I should so love to see them, 
and stay the night.” Liso was greatly annoyed. 
She had just arranged a meeting with one of 
her numerous lovers, and this invitation upset 
everything. However, as it was of vital im¬ 
portance to her to keep in with her aunt, she 


244 


WERWOLVES 


at once decided to put off her previous engage¬ 
ment and take her children to see their rich old 
relative. 

Hoping that her lover might perhaps join 
her on the road and thus convert a boring 
journey into a pleasant pastime, Liso, in spite 
of her husband’s entreaties, refused to take a 
servant, and insisted upon driving herself. As 
she had anticipated, her lover met her on the 
outskirts of the town, but, to her chagrin, was 
unable to accompany her any part of the way to 
Skatea. He was most profuse in his apologies, 
adding, “ I wish you weren’t going; I hear the 
road you will be traversing is infested with 
bears and wolves.” 

“ Thank you ! ” she exclaimed mockingly, 
“ I am not afraid, if you are. I can quite under¬ 
stand now why you cannot come. Good-bye ! ” 
And with a haughty inclination of her head she 
drove off, without deigning to notice the young 
man’s outstretched hand. Liso was now in a 
very bad temper ; and, having no other means 
of venting it, savagely silenced the children 
whenever they attempted to speak. 

The vehicle in which the party travelled was 
a light sledge, drawn by one horse only—a 
beast of matchless beauty and size, which, under 
ordinary circumstances, could cover twelve miles 
in an almost inconceivably short space of time. 
But now, owing to a heavy fall of snow, the 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 245 


track, though well beaten, was heavy, and the 
piled-up snow on each side so deep that to turn 
back, without the risk of sticking fast, was an 
impossibility. 

The first half of the journey passed without 
accident, and they were skirting the borders 
of a pine forest when Liso suddenly became 
conscious of a suspicious noise behind her. 
Looking round, she saw, to her horror, a troop 
of gaunt grey wolves issue from the forest and 
commence running after the sledge. She 
instantly slashed the horse with her whip, and 
the next moment the chase began in grim earnest. 
But, gallop as fast as it would, the horse could 
not outpace the wolves, whom hunger had made 
fleet as the wind, and it was not many minutes 
before two of the biggest of them appeared on 
eitherside of the vehicle. Though their intention 
was, in all probability, only to attack the horse, 
yet the safety both of Liso and the children 
depended on the preservation of the animal. 

It was indeed a beautiful creature, and the 
danger only enhanced its value ; it seemed, in 
fact, almost entitled to claim for its preservation 
an extraordinary sacrifice. And Liso did not 
hesitate. It was one life against three—the 
world would excuse her, if God did not. 

“You, Charles,” she said hoarsely, “you are 
the eldest; it is your duty to go first ”—and 
before Charles had time to realize what was 


246 


WERWOLVES 


happening, she had gripped him round the 
waist, and with strength generated by the crisis 
hurled him into the snow. She did not see 
where he fell—the sledge was moving far too fast 
for that; but she heard the sound of the concus¬ 
sion, and then frantic screaming, accompanied 
by howls of triumph and joyful yapping. There 
was a momentary lull—only momentary—and 
then the patting footsteps recommenced. 

Nearer and nearer they came, until she 
could hear a deep and regular pant, pant, pant, 
drowned every now and then by prolonged 
howls and piercing, nerve-racking whines. 
Once again two murder-breathing forms are 
racing along at the side of the sledge, biting 
and snapping at the horse’s legs with their 
gleaming, foam-flecked jaws. 

“George,” Liso shouted, “you must go 
now. You are a boy, and boys and men should 
always die to save their sisters.” But George, 
though younger, was not so easy to dispose of 
as Charles. Charles had been taken unawares, 
but George guessed what was coming and was 
on his guard. 

“ No, no,” he cried, clinging on to the sledge 
with both his chubby hands. “ The wolves 
will eat me! Take sissy.” 

“Wretch!” shrieked Liso, boxing his ears 
furiously. “ Selfish little wretch I So this is 
the result of all the kindness I have lavished on 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 


247 


you. Let go at once ”—and tearing at his 
baby wrists with all her might, she succeeded in 
loosening them, and the next instant he was 
in the road. 

Then there was a repetition of what had 
happened before—a few wild screeches, savage 
howls of triumph, and snarls and grunts that 
suggested much. Then—comparative quiet, 
and then—patterings. Mad with fear, Liso 
stood up and lashed the horse. God of 
mercy! there was now only one more life 
between hers and the fate that, of all fates in 
the world, seemed to her just then to be the 
most dreadful. With the thick and gloomy 
forest before and behind her, and the nearer 
and nearer trampling of her ravenous pursuers, 
she almost collapsed from sheer anguish ; but 
the thought of all her beauty perishing in such 
an ignominious and painful fashion braced her 
up. Perhaps, too—at least, let us hope so— 
underlying it all, though so much in the back¬ 
ground, there was a genuine longing to save 
the little mite—her exact counterpart, so people 
said—that nestled its sunny head in the folds 
of her soft and costly sealskin coat. 

She did not venture to look behind her, only 
in front—at the seemingly never-ending white 
track; at the dense mass of trees—trees that 
shook their heads mockingly at her as the wind 
rustled through them ; at the great splash of 


248 


WERWOLVES 


red right across the sky, so horribly remindful 
of blood that she shuddered. Night birds 
hoot; wild cats glare down at her ; and shadows 
of every kind glide noiselessly out from behind 
the great trunks, and await her approach with 
inexplicable flickerings and flutterings. 

All at once two rough paws are laid on her 
shoulders, and the wide-open, bloody jaws of 
an enormous wolf hang over her head. It is 
the most ferocious beast of the troop, which, 
having partly missed its leap at the sledge, is 
dragged along with it, in vain seeking with its 
hinder legs for a resting-place to enable it to get 
wholly on to the frail vehicle. Liso looks down 
at the little girl beside her and their eyes meet. 

“Not me! not me!” the tiny one cried, 
clutching hold of her wrist in its anxiety. “ I 
have been good, have I not? You will not 
throw me into the snow like the others ? ” 
Liso s lips tightened. The weight of the body 
of the wolf drew her gradually backwards— 
another minute and she would be out of the 
sledge. Her life was of assuredly more value 
than that of the child. Besides, one so young 
vrould not feel the horrors of death so acutely 
as she would, who was grown up. Anything 
rather than such a devilish ending. Providence 
willed it—Providence must bear the responsi¬ 
bility. And, steeling her soul to pity, she 
snatches up her daughter and throws her into 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 


249 


the gleaming jaws of the wolf, which, springing 
off the sledge, hastily departs with its prey into 
the forest, where it is followed by hosts of 
other wolves. Exhausted, stunned, senseless 
—for her escape has been extremely narrow— 
Liso drops the reins, and, sinking back into the 
luxurious cushions of the vehicle, gives a great 
sigh of relief and shuts her eyes. 

Meantime the trees grow thinner, and an 
isolated house, to which a side-road leads, ap¬ 
pears at no great distance off. The horse, left 
to itself, follows this new path ; it enters through 
an open gate, and, panting and foaming, comes 
to a dead halt before a ponderous oak door 
studded with huge iron nails. Presently Liso 
recovers. She finds herself seated before a 
roaring fire ; and a woman with a white face, 
dark, piercing eyes, and a beak-like nose, is 
bending over her. The woman presents such 
an extraordinary spectacle that Liso is oblivious 
of everything else, and gazes at her with a cold 
sensation of fear creeping down her spine. 

“ You’ve had a narrow escape,” the woman 
presently exclaims in peculiarly hoarse tones. 
“ And the danger is not over yet! Listen ! ” 
To Liso’s terror an inferno of howls and 
whines sounds from the yard outside, and she 
sees, gleaming in at her through the window- 
panes, scores of wild, hairy faces with pale, 
lurid eyes. “They are there!” the woman 


250 


WERWOLVES 


remarks, a saturnine smile in her eyes and 
playing round her lips. '‘There—all ready 
to rend and tear you to pieces as they did your 
children—your three pretty, loving children. 
I’ve only to open the door, and in they 
will rush! ” 

“ But you won’t,” Liso gasped feebly. “ You 
won’t be so cruel. Besides, they could eat 
you, too.” 

“ Oh no, they couldn’t,” the woman laughed. 
“ I’m a Vargamor. Every one of these wolves 
knows me and loves me as a mother. With 
you it is very different. Shall I- ?” 

“ Oh no ! for pity’s sake spare me ! ” Liso 
cried, throwing herself at the woman’s feet and 
catching hold of her hands. “ Spare me, and 
I will do anything you want.” 

“Well,” said the woman, after some considera¬ 
tion, “ I will spare you on one condition, 
namely, that you live with me and do the 
housework ; I’m getting too old for it.” 

“ I suppose I may see my family occasion¬ 
ally ? ” Liso said. 

“No!” the old woman snapped, “you may 
not. You must never go out of sight of this 
house. Now, what do you say Recollect, it 
is either that or the wolves 1 Quick,” and she 
hobbled to the door as she spoke. 

“I’ve chosen!” Liso shrieked. “I’ll stay 
with you. Anything rather than such an awful 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 251 


death. Tell me what I have to do and I’ll 
begin at once.” 

The old woman took her at her word. She 
speedily set Liso a task, and from that time 
onward, kept her so continuously employed, not 
allowing her a moment to herself, that her life 
soon became unbearable. She tried to escape, 
but each time she left the house the fierce 
howling of the wolves sent her back to it in 
terror, and she discovered that, night and day, 
certain of the beasts were supervising her 
movements. After she had been there a week 
the old woman said to her, “ I fear it is useless 
to think of keeping you any longer! Times 
are bad—food is scarce. The wolves are 
hungry—I must give you to them.” 

But Liso fell on her knees and pleaded so 
hard that the Vargamor relented, “ Well, 
well I ” she said, “ I will spare you, provided 
you can procure me a substitute. If you like 
to sit down and write to some one I will see 
that the note is delivered.” 

Then Liso, almost beside herself at the 
thought of the hungry wolves, sat down and 
wrote a letter to her husband, telling him she 
had met with an accident, and desiring him to 
come to her at once. She dared not give him 
the slightest hint as to what had actually befallen 
her, as she knew the old woman would read 
the letter. 


252 


WERWOLVES 


When she had finished her note, the Vargamor 
took it, and for the next twelve hours Liso had 
a very anxious time. 

“ If he doesn’t come soon,” the old woman 
at length said to her, with an evil chuckle, “ I 
shall have to let the wolves in. They are 
famishing ; and I, too, want something tastier 
than rabbits and squirrels.” 

The minutes passed, and Liso was nearly 
fainting with suspense, when there suddenly 
broke on her ears the distant tramp of horses’ 
feet; and in a very few moments a droshky 
dashed up to the door. 

“ Call him in here,” the Vargamor said, “ and 
run up and hide in your bedroom. My pets and 
I will enjoy him all the better by the fire, and 
there won’t be so much risk of them being hurt.” 

Liso, afraid to do otherwise, ran up the 
rickety ladder leading to her room, shouting as 
she did so, “ Oscar ! Oscar ! come in, come in.” 

The joyful note in her husband’s voice as he 
replied to her invitation struck a new chord in 
Liso’s nature—a chord which had been there 
all the time, but had got choked and clogged 
through over-indulgence. Full of a courage 
that dared anything in its determination to 
save him, she crept cautiously down the stairs, 
and just as he crossed the threshold, and the 
Vargamor was about to summon the wolves, 
she dashed up to the old woman and struck 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 


253 


her with all her might. Then, seizing her 
husband, she dragged him out of the house, 
and, hustling him into the carriage, jumped in 
by his side and told the coachman to drive 
home with the utmost speed. 

All this was done in less time than it takes 
to tell, and once again the familiar sounds of 
pattering—patterings on the snow in the wake 
of the carriage—fell on Liso’s ears, and all the 
old horrors of the preceding journey came 
back to her with full force. 

Slowly, despite the fact that there were two 
horses now, the wolves gained on them, and 
once again the same harrowing question arose 
in Liso s mind. Some one must be sacrificed. 
Which should it be ? The coachman ! with¬ 
out doubt the coachman. He was only a poor, 
uneducated man, a hireling, and his life was 
as nothing compared either with that of her 
husband or her own. 

But she now remembered that Oscar, though 
usually a mere straw in her hands, and ready 
to do anything she asked him, had one or 
two peculiarities—fondness for children and 
animals, and a great respect for life—life in 
every grade. Would he consent to sacrifice 
the coachman.^ And as she glanced at him, 
a feeling of awe came over her. What a big, 
strong man this husband of hers was, and 
what strength he had—strength of all kinds. 


254 


WERWOLVES 


physical as well as mental—if he cared to exert 
it. But then he loved, worshipped, and adored 
her; he would never treat her with anything 
but the utmost deference and kindness, no 
matter what she said or did. Still, when she 
got ready to whisper the fatal suggestion in 
his ear, her heart failed her. And then the 
new something within her—that something 
that had already spoken and seemed inclined 
to be painfully officious—once more asserted 
itself. The coachman was married, he had 
children—four people dependent on him, four 
hearts that loved him! With her it was 
different : no one was actually dependent on 
her—there were no children now! Nothing 
but the memory of them! Memory—what a 
hateful thing it was I She had forced them to 
give her their lives; would it not be some 
atonement for her act if she were now to offer 
hers? She made the offer—breathed it with 
a shuddering soul into her husband s ears— 
and with a great round oath he rejected it. 

“What! You! Let you be thrown to the 
wolves ? ” he roared. “ No—sooner than that, 
ten thousand times sooner, I will jump out! 
But I don’t think there is any need. Knowing 
there were wolves about, I brought arms. If 
occasion arises we can easily account for half 
of them. But we shall outdistance them 
yet.” 

He spoke the truth. Bit by bit the power- 


IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN 255 


ful horses drew away from the pack, and ere 
the last trees of the forest were passed, the 
bowlings were no longer heard and all danger 
was at an end. 

Then, and not till then, did Oscar learn 
what had become of the children. 

He listened to Liso’s explanation in silence, 
and it was not until she had finished that the 
surprise came. She was anticipating com¬ 
miseration—commiseration for the awful hell 
she had undergone. She little guessed the 
struggle that was taking place beneath her 
husband’s seemingly calm exterior. The 
revelation came with an abruptness that stag¬ 
gered her. “Woman!” he cried, “you are 
a murderess. Sooner than have sacrificed 
your children you should have suffered three 
deaths yourself—that is the elementary instinct 
of all mothers, human and otherwise. You 
are below the standard of a beast—of the 
Vargamor you slew. Go 1 go back to those 
parents who bore you, and tell them I’ll have 
nought to do with you—that I want a woman 
for my wife, not a monstrosity.” 

He bade the coachman pull up, and, alight¬ 
ing, told the man to drive Liso to the home 
of her parents. 

But Liso did not hear him—she sat huddled 
up on the seat with her eyes staring blankly 
before her. For the first time in her life she 
was conscious that she loved! 


CHAPTER XVI 


WERWOLVES IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, 
AND FINLAND 

HE Bersekir of Iceland are credited 



with the rare property of dual metamor- 


phosis—that is to say, they are credited 
with the power of being able to adopt the 
individual forms of two animals—the bear 
and the wolf. 

For substantiation as to the bona-fide 
existence of this rare property of dual 
metamorphosis one has only to refer to the 
historical literature of the country (the authen¬ 
ticity of which is beyond dispute), wherein 
many cases of it are recorded. 

The following story, illustrative of dual 
metamorphosis, was told to me on fairly 
good authority. 

A very unprepossessing Bersekir, named 
Rerir, falling in love with Signi, the beautiful 
daughter of a neighbouring Bersekir, proposed 
to her and was scornfully rejected. Smarting 


IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, FINLAND 257 


under the many insults that had been heaped on 
him—for Signi had a most cutting tongue— 
Rerir, who, like most of the Bersekir, was both 
a werwolf and a wer-bear, resolved to be 
revenged. Assuming the shape of a bear— 
the animal he deemed the more formidable— 
Rerir stole to the house where Signi and her 
parents lived, and climbing on the roof, tore 
away at it with his claws till he had made 
a hole big enough to admit him. Dropping 
through the aperture he had thus effected, 
he alighted on the top of some one in bed— 
one of the servants of the house—whom he 
hugged to death before she had time to utter 
a cry. He then stole out into the passage and 
made his way, cautiously and noiselessly, to the 
room in which he imagined Signi slept. Here, 
however, instead of finding the object of his 
passions, he came upon her parents, one of 
whom—the mother—was awake ; and aiming 
a blow at the latter’s head, he crushed in her 
skull with one stroke of his powerful paw. 
The noise awoke Signi’s father, who, taking in 
the situation at a glance, also metamorphosed 
into a bear and straightway closed with his 
assailant. A desperate encounter between the 
two wer-animals now commenced, and the 
whole household, aroused from their slumber, 
came trooping in. For some time the issue of 
the combat was dubious, both adversaries 
s 


258 


WERWOLVES 


being fairly well matched. But at length 
Rerir began to prevail, and Signi’s father 
cried out for some one to help him. Then 
Signi, anxious to save her parent’s life, seized 
a knife, and, aiming a frantic blow, inad¬ 
vertently struck her father, who instantly sank 
on the ground, leaving her at the mercy of his 
furious opponent. 

With a loud snarl of triumph, Rerir rushed 
at the girl, and was bearing her triumphantly 
away, when the cook—an old woman who had 
followed the fortunes of the Bersekir all her 
life—had a sudden inspiration. Standing on 
a shelf in the corner of the room was a jar 
containing a preparation of sulphur, asafoetida, 
and castoreum, which her mistress had always 
given her to understand was a preventive 
against evil spirits. Snatching it up, she 
darted after the wer-bear and flung the 
contents of it in its face, just as it was 
about to descend the stairs with Signi. In 
a moment there was a sudden and startling 
metamorphosis, and in the place of the bear 
stood the ugly, misshapen man, Rerir. 

The hunchback now would gladly have de¬ 
parted without attempting further mischief; for 
although the household boasted no man apart 
from its incapacitated master, there were still 
three formidable women and some big dogs 
to be faced. 


IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, FINLAND 259 


But to let him escape, after the irreparable 
harm he had done, was the very last thing 
Signi would permit; and with an air of stern 
authority she commanded the servants to fall on 
him with any weapons they could find, whilst 
she would summon the hounds. 

Now, indeed, the tables were completely 
turned. Rerir was easily overpowered and bound 
securely hand and foot by Signi and her servants, 
and after undergoing a brief trial the following 
morning he was summarily executed. 

Those Icelanders who possessed the property 
of metamorphosis into wolves and bears (they 
were always of the male sex), more often than 
not used it for the purpose of either wreak¬ 
ing vengeance or of executing justice. The 
terrible temper—for the rage of the Bersekir 
has been a byword for centuries—commonly 
attributed to Icelanders and Scandinavians in 
general, is undoubtedly traceable to the wer¬ 
wolves and wer-bears into which the Ber- 
sekirs metamorphosed. 

It is said that in Iceland there are both lycan- 
thropous streams and flowers, and that they 
differ little if at all from those to be met with in 
other countries. 

The Werwolves of Lapland 

In Lapland werwolves are still much to the 
fore. I n many families the property is hereditary. 



260 


WERWOLVES 


whilst it is not infrequently sought and acquired 
through the practice of Black Magic. Though, 
perhaps, more common among males, there 
are, nevertheless, many instances of it among 
females. 

The following case comes from the country 
bordering on Lake Enara. 

The child of a peasant woman named Martha, 
just able to trot alone, and consequently left 
to wander just where it pleased, came home 
one morning with its forehead apparently licked 
raw, all its fingers more or less injured, and 
two of them seemingly sucked and mumbled 
to a mere pulp. 

On being interrogated as to what had hap¬ 
pened, it told a most astounding tale : A very 
beautiful lady had picked it up and carried 
it away to her house, where she had put it 
in a room with her three children, who were 
all very pretty and daintily dressed. At sunset, 
however, both the lady and her children meta¬ 
morphosed into wolves, and would undoubtedly 
have eaten it, had they not satiated their appe¬ 
tites on a portion of a girl which had been 
kept over from the preceding day. The new¬ 
comer was intended for their meal on the 
morrow, and obeying the injunctions of their 
mother, the young werwolves had forborne 
to devour the child, though they had all 
tasted it. 


IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, FINLAND 261 


The child’s parents were simply dumbfounded 
—they could scarcely credit their senses—and 
made their offspring repeat its narrative over 
and over again. And as it stuck to what it 
had said, they ultimately concluded that it was 
true, and that the lady described could be none 
other than Madame Tonno, the wife of their 
landlord and patron—a person of immense 
importance in the neighbourhood. 

But what could they do ? How could they 
protect their children from another raid ? 

To accuse the lady, who was rich and in¬ 
fluential, of being a werwolf would be useless. 
No one would believe them—no one dare 
believe them—and they would be severely 
punished for their indiscretion. Being poor, 
they were entirely at her mercy, and if she 
chose to eat their children, they could not 
prevent her, unless they could catch her in 
the act. 

One evening the mother was washing clothes 
before the door of her house, with her second 
child, a little girl of four years of age, playing 
about close by. The cottage stood in a lonely 
part of the estate, forming almost an island 
in the midst of low boggy ground ; and there 
was no house nearer than that of M. Tonno. 
Martha, bending over her wash-tub, was 
making every effort to complete her task, 
when a fearful cry made her look up, and there 


262 


WERWOLVES 


was the child, gripped by one shoulder, in the 
jaws of a great she-wolf, the arm that was free 
extended towards her. Martha was so close 
that she managed to clutch a bit of the child’s 
clothing in one hand, whilst with the other she 
beat the brute with all her might to make it let 
go its hold. But all in vain : the relentless jaws 
did not show the slightest sign of relaxing, and 
with a saturnine glitter in its deep-set eyes it 
emitted a hoarse burr-burr, and set off at full 
speed towards the forest, dragging the mother, 
who was still clinging to the garment of her 
child, with it. 

But they did not long continue thus. The 
wolf turned into some low-lying uneven track, 
and Martha, falling over the jagged trunk of 
a tree, found herself lying on the ground with 
only a little piece of torn clothing tightly 
clasped in her hand. Hitherto, comforted by 
Martha’s presence, the little one had not 
uttered a sound ; but now, feeling itself de¬ 
serted, it gave vent to the most heartrending 
screams—screams that abruptly disturbed the 
silence of that lonely spot and pierced to the 
depths of Martha’s soul. In an instant she 
rose, and, dashing on, bounded over stock and 
stone, tearing herself pitiably, but heeding it 
not in her intense anxiety to save her child. But 
the wolf had now increased its speed ; the under¬ 
growth was thick, the ground heavier, and soon 


IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, FINLAND 263 


screams became her only guide. Still on and 
on she dashed, now snatching up a little shoe 
which was clinging to the bushes, now shriek¬ 
ing with agony as she saw fragments of the 
child’s hair and clothes on the low jagged 
boughs obstructing her path. On, on, on, 
until the screams grew fainter, then louder, 
and then ceased altogether. 

Late that night the husband. Max, found 
his wife lying dead, just outside the grounds 
of his patron s chateau. Guessing what had 
happened, and having but one thought in his 
mind—namely, revenge—Max, arming himself 
with the branch of a tree, marched boldly up 
to the house, and rapped loudly at the door. 

M. Tonno answered this peremptory sum¬ 
mons himself, and demanded in an angry voice 
what Max meant by daring to announce him¬ 
self thus. 

Max pointed in the direction of the corpse. 
'‘That!” he shrieked; “that is the reason of 
my visit. Madame Tonno is a werwolf—she 
has murdered both my wife and child, and I 
am here to demand justice.” 

“Come inside,” M. Tonno said, the tone of 
his voice suddenly changing. “ We can discuss 
the matter indoors in the privacy of my study.” 
And he conducted Max to a room in the rear 
of the house. 

But no sooner had Max crossed the thresh- 


264 


WERWOLVES 


old than the door was slammed on him, 
and he found himself a prisoner. He turned 
to the window, but there was no hope there— 
it was heavily barred. But although a peasant 
—and a fool, so he told himself, to have thus 
deliberately walked into a trap—Max was not 
altogether without wits, and he searched the 
room thoroughly, eventually discovering a loose 
board. Tearing it up, he saw that the space 
under the floor—that is to say, between the 
floor and the foundation of the house—was 
just deep enough for him to lie there at full 
length. Here, then, was a possible avenue of 
escape. Setting to work, he succeeded, after 
much effort, in wrenching up another board, 
and then another, and getting into the excava¬ 
tion thus made, he worked his way along on 
his stomach, until he came to a grating, which, 
to his utmost joy, proved to be loose. It was 
but the work of a few minutes to force it out 
and to dislodge a few bricks, and Max was 
once again free. His one idea now was to tell 
his tale to his brother peasants and rouse them 
to immediate action, and with this end in view 
he set off running at full speed to the nearest 
settlement. 

The peasants of Lapland are slow and stolid 
and take a lot of rousing, but when once they 
are roused, few people are so terrible. 

Fortunately for Max, he was not the only 


IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, FINLAND 265 


sufferer; several other people in the neighbour¬ 
hood had lately lost their children, and the 
story he told found ready credence. In less 
than an hour a large body of men and women, 
armed with every variety of weapon, from a 
sword to a pitchfork, had gathered together, 
and setting off direct to the chateau, they 
surrounded it on all sides, and forcing an 
entrance, seized M. Tonno and his werwolf wife 
and werwolf children, and binding them hand 
and foot, led them to the shores of Lake 
Enara and drowned them. They then went 
back to the house and, setting fire to it, burned 
it to the ground, thus making certain of de¬ 
stroying any werwolf influence it might still 
contain. 

With this wholesale extermination a case 
that may be taken as a characteristic type of 
Lapland lycanthropy in all its grim and sordid 
details concludes. 

Finland Werwolves 

Finland teems with stories of werwolves— 
stories ancient and modern, for the werwolf 
is said to still flourish in various parts of the 
country. 

The property is not restricted to one sex; 
it is equally common to both. Spells and 
various forms of exorcism are used, and certain 
streams are held to be lycanthropous. 


266 


WERWOLVES 


However, in Finland as in Scandinavia, it is 
very difficult to procure information as to wer¬ 
wolves. The common peasant, who alone 
knows anything about the anomaly, is with¬ 
held by superstition from even mentioning its 
name; and if he mentions a werwolf at all, 
designates him only as the “ old one,” or the 
“grey one,” or the “great dog,” feeling that 
to call this terror by its true name is a sure 
way to exasperate it. It is only by strategy 
one learns from a peasant that when a fine 
young ox is found in the morning breathing 
hard, his hide bathed in foam, and with every 
sign of fright and exhaustion, while, perhaps, 
only one trifling wound is discovered on the 
whole body, which swells and inflames as if 
poison had been infused, the animal generally 
dying before night; and that when, on exami¬ 
nation of the corpse, the intestines are found 
to be torn as with the claws of a wolf, and 
the whole body is in a state of inflammation, 
it is accounted certain that the mischief has 
been caused by a werwolf. 

It is thus a werwolf serves his quarry when 
he kills for the mere love of killing, and not 
for food. 

In Finland, perhaps more than in other 
countries, werwolves are credited with demon¬ 
iacal power, and old women who possess the 
property of metamorphosing into wolves are 


IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, FINLAND 267 


said to be able to paralyse cattle and children 
with their eyes, and to have poison in their 
nails, one wound from which causes certain 
death. 

To illustrate the foregoing I have selected 
an incident which happened near Diolen, a 
village on the eastern shore of the Gulf of 
Finland, at the distance of about a hundred 
wersts from the ancient city of Mawa. Here 
vegetation is of a more varied and luxuriant 
kind than is usually found in the Northern 
latitude; the oak and the bela, intermingled 
with rich plots of grass, grow at the very edge 
of the sea—a phenomenon accountable for by 
the fact that the Baltic is tideless. 

For about half a werst in breadth, the shore 
continues a level, luxuriant stretch, when it sud¬ 
denly rises in three successive cliffs, each about 
a hundred feet in height, and placed about the 
same space of half a werst, one behind the 
other, like huge steps leading to the table-land 
above. In some places the rocks are com¬ 
pletely hidden from the view by a thick fence 
of trees, which take root at their base, while 
each level is covered by a minute forest of firs, 
in which grow a variety of herbs and shrubs, 
including the English whitethorn, and wild 
strawberries. 

It was to gather the latter that Savanich and 
his seven-year-old son, Peter, came one after- 


268 


WERWOLVES 


noon early in summer. They had filled two 
baskets and were contemplating returning 
home with their spoil, when Caspan, the big 
sheepdog, uttered a low growl. 

Hey, Caspan, what is it ? ” Peter cried. 
“Footsteps! And such curious ones!” 

“They are curious,” Savanich said, bending 
down to examine them. “ They are larger 
and coarser than those of Caspan, longer in 
shape, and with a deep indentation of the ball 
of the foot. They are those of a wolf—an old 
one, because of the deepness of the tracks. 
Old wolves walk heavy. And here’s a wound 
the brute has got in its paw. See ! there is a 
slight irregularity on the print of the hind feet, 
as if from a dislocated claw. We must be 
on our guard. Wolves are hungry now : the 
waters have driven them up together, and the 
cattle are not let out yet. The beast is not far 
off, either. An old wolf like this will prowl 
about for days together, round the same place, 
till he picks up something.” 

“ I hope it won’t attack us, father,” Peter 
said, catching hold of Savanich by the hand. 
“ What should you do if it did ? ” 

But before Savanich could reply, Caspan 
gave a loud bark and dashed into the thicket, 
and the next moment a terrible pandemonium 
of yells, and snorts, and sharp howls filled the 
air. Drawing his knife from its sheath, and 


IN ICELAND, LAPLAND, FINLAND 269 


telling Peter to keep close at his heels, 
Savanich followed Caspan and speedily came 
upon the scene of the encounter. Caspan 
had hold of a huge grey wolf by the neck, 
and was hanging on to it like grim death, in 
spite of the brutes frantic efforts to free 
itself. 

There was but little doubt that the brave 
dog would have, eventually, paid the penalty 
for its rashness—for the wolf had mauled it 
badly, and it was beginning to show signs of 
exhaustion through loss of blood—had not 
Savanich arrived in the nick of time. A couple 
of thrusts from his knife stretched the wolf 
on the ground, when, to his utmost horror, 
it suddenly metamorphosed into a hideous 
old hag. 

‘‘A werwolf!” Savanich gasped, crossing 
himself. “ Get out of her way, Peter, quick I ” 

But it was too late. Thrusting out a skinny 
hand, the hag scratched Peter on the ankle with 
the long curved, poisonous nail of her forefinger. 
Then, with an evil smile on her lips, she turned 
over on her back, and expired. And before 
Peter could be got home he, too, was dead. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE WERWOLF IN RUSSIA AND 
SIBERIA 

HE ideal home of all things weird and 



uncanny—is cold, grey, gaunt, and giant 


Russia. Nowhere is the werwolf so 
much in evidence to-day as in the land of the 
Czar, where all the primitive conditions favour¬ 
able to such anomalies, still exist, and where 
they have undergone but little change in the 
last ten thousand years. 

A thinly-populated country—vast stretches 
of wild uncultivated land, full of dense forests, 
rich in trees most favourable to Elementals,,and 
watered by deep, silent tarns, and stealthily 
moving streams,—its very atmosphere is im¬ 
pregnated with lycanthropy. 

At the base of giant firs and poplars, or poking 
out their heads impudently, from amidst 
brambles and ferns, are werwolf flowers— 
flowers with all the characteristics of those 
found in Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula, 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


271 


but of a greater variety. There are, for example, 
in addition to the white, yellow, and red species, 
those of a bluish-white hue, that emit a glow at 
night like the phosphorescent glow emanating 
from decaying animal and vegetable matter; 
and those of a brilliant orange, covered with 
black, protruding spots, suggestive of some 
particularly offensive disease, that show a 
marked preference for damp places, and are 
specially to be met with growing in the slime 
and mud at the edge of a pool, or in the soft, 
rotten mould of morasses. 

Werwolves haunt the plains, too—the great 
barren, undulating deserts that roll up to the 
foot of the Urals, Caucasus, Altai, Yablonoi, and 
Stanovoi Mountains—and the Tundras along 
the shores of the Arctic Ocean—dreary swamps 
in summer and ice-covered wastes in winter. 
Here, at night, they wander over the rough, 
stony, arid ground, picking their way surrepti¬ 
tiously through the scant vegetation, and avoid¬ 
ing all frequented localities ; pausing, every now 
and then, to slake their thirst in deep sunk 
wells, or to listen for the sounds of quarry. 
Hazel hen, swans, duck, geese, squirrels, hares, 
elk, reindeer, roes, fallowdeer, and wild sheep, 
all are food to the werwolf, though nothing is 
so heartily appreciated by it as fat tender 
children or young and plump women. 

In its nocturnal ramblings the werwolf often 


272 


WERWOLVES 


encounters enemies—bears, wolves, and pan¬ 
thers—with which it struggles for dominion 
—dominion of forest, plain and mountain ; and 
when the combat ends to its disadvantage, its 
metamorphosed corpse is at once devoured by 
its conqueror. 

Of all parts of Russia, the werwolf loves best 
the Caucasus and Ural Mountains. They are 
to Russia what the Harz Mountains were to 
Germany, centuries ago—the head-quarters of 
all manner of psychic phenomena, the happy 
hunting ground of phantom and fairy; and 
over them still lingers, almost, if not quite, as 
forcibly as ever, the glamour and mystery in¬ 
separable from the superphysical. 

Times without number have the great black 
beetling crags of these mountains been scaled 
by the furry, sinewy feet of werwolves ; 
times without number have the shadows of 
these anomalies fallen on the moon-kissed, 
snowy peaks, towering high into the sky, or 
mingled with the rank and dewy herbage in 
the pine-clad valleys, and narrow abysmal 
gorges deep down below. 

It was here, in these lone Russian mountains, 
so legend relates, that Peter and Paul turned 
an impious wife and husband, who refused them 
shelter, into wolves: but Peter and Paul, 
apparently, had not the monopoly of this 
power; for it was here, too, in a Ural village, 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


273 


that the Devil is alleged to have metamor¬ 
phosed half a dozen men into wolves for not 
paying him sufficient homage. 

There is no restriction as to the sex of wer¬ 
wolves in Russia and Siberia—male and female 
werwolves are about equal in number, though 
perhaps there is a slight preponderance in 
favour of the female. Vargamors are to be 
encountered in almost all the less frequented 
woody regions, but more especially in those 
in the immediate vicinity of the Urals and 
Caucasus. 

Though many of the werwolves inherit the 
property, many, too, have acquired it through 
direct intercourse with the superphysical; and 
the invocation of spirits, whether performed indi¬ 
vidually or collectively, is far from uncommon. 

Black Magic is said to be practised in the 
Urals, Caucasus, Yerkhoiansk, and Stanovoi 
Mountains ; in the Tundras, the Plains of East 
Russia, the Timan Range, the Kola Peninsula, 
and various parts of Siberia. 

I am told that the usual initiating ceremony 
consists of drawing a circle, from seven to nine 
feet in radius, in the centre of which circle a 
wood fire is kindled—tke wood selected being 
black poplar, pine or larch, never ash. A 
fumigation in an iron vessel, heated over the 
fire, is then made out of a mixture of any four 
or five of the following substances: Hem- 


274 


WERWOLVES 


lock (2 to 3 ounces), henbane (i ounce to ij 
ounces), saffron (3 ounces), poppy seed (any 
amount), aloe (3 drachms), opium (J ounce), 
asafoetida (2 ounces), solanum (2 to 3 drachms), 
parsley (any amount). 

As soon as the vessel is placed over the fire 
so that it can heat, the person who would 
invoke the spirit that can bestow upon him 
the property of metamorphosing into a wolf 
kneels within the circle, and prays a preliminary 
impromptu prayer. He then resorts to an 
incantation, which runs, so I have been told, 
as follows :— 

Hail, hail, hail, great wolf spirit, hail! 

A boon I ask thee, mighty shade. Within this circle I 
have made. 

Make me a werwolf strong and bold. 

The terror alike of young and old. 

Grant me a figure tall and spare; 

The speed of the elk, the claws of the bear; 

The poison of snakes, the wit of the fox ; 

The stealth of the wolf, the strength of the ox; 

The jaws of the tiger, the teeth of the shark; 

The eyes of a cat that sees in the dark. 

Make me climb like a monkey, scent like a dog. 

Swim like a fish, and eat like a hog. 

Haste, haste, haste, lonely spirit, haste ! 

Here, wan and drear, magic spell making, 

Findest thou me—shaking, quaking. 

Softly fan me as I lie. 

And thy mystic touch apply— 

Touch apply, and I swear that when I die. 

When I die, I will serve thee evermore, 

Evermore, in grey wolf land, cold and raw. 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


275 


The incantation concluded, the supplicant 
then kisses the ground three times, and ad¬ 
vancing to the fire, takes off the iron vessel, 
and whirling it smoking round his head, cries 
out:— 

“ Make me a werwolf! make me a man-eater! 

Make me a werwolf! make me a woman-eater ! 

Make me a werwolf! make me a child-eater! 

I pine for blood ! human blood ! 

Give it me ! give it me to-night! 

Great Wolf Spirit! give it me, and 

Heart, body, and soul, I am yours.” 

The trees then begin to rustle, and the wind 
to moan, and out of the sudden darkness that 
envelops everything glows the tall, cylindrical, 
pillar-like phantom of the Unknown, seven or 
eight feet in height. It sometimes develops 
further, and assumes the form of a tall, thin mon¬ 
strosity, half human and half animal, grey and 
nude, with very long legs and arms, and the feet 
and claws of a wolf. Its head is shaped like that 
of a wolf, but surrounded with the hair of a 
woman, that falls about its bare shoulders in 
yellow ringlets. It has wolfs ears and a wolfs 
mouth. Its aquiline nose and pale eyes are 
fashioned like those of a human being, but 
animated with an expression too diabolically 
malignant to proceed from anything but the 
superphysical. 

It seldom if ever speaks, but either utters 


276 


WERWOLVES 


some extraordinary noise—a prolonged howl that 
seems to proceed from the bowels of the earth, 
a piercing, harrowing whine, or a low laugh 
full of hellish glee, any of which sounds may 
be taken to express its assent to the favour 
asked. 

It only remains visible for a minute at the 
most, and then disappears with startling abrupt¬ 
ness. The supplicant is now a werwolf. He 
undergoes his first metamorphosis into wolf form 
the following evening at sunset, reassuming his 
human shape at dawn ; and so on, day after 
day, till his death, when he may once more 
metamorphose either from man form to wolf 
form, or vice versa, his corpse retaining which¬ 
ever form has been assumed at the moment of 
death. However, with regard to this final 
metamorphosis there is no consistency : it may 
or may not take place. In the practice of 
exorcism, for the purpose of eradicating the evil 
property of werwolfery, all manner of methods 
are employed. Sometimes the werwolf is 
soundly whipped with ash twigs, and saturated 
with a potion such as I described in a previous 
chapter ; sometimes he is made to lie or sit 
over, or lie or stand close beside, a vessel con¬ 
taining a fumigation mixture composed of 
sulphur, asafoetida, and castoreum, or hyperi- 
cum and vinegar ; or sometimes, again, he is well 
whipped and rubbed all over with the juice of 


IN RUSSIA. AND SIBERIA 


277 


the mistletoe berry. Occasionally a priest is 
summoned, and then a formal ceremony takes 
place. 

An altar is erected. On it are placed lighted 
candles, a Bible, a crucifix. The werwolf, in 
wolf form, bound hand and foot, is then placed 
on the ground at the foot of the altar, and 
fumigated with incense and sprinkled with holy 
water. The sign of the cross is made on his 
forehead, chest, back, and on the palms of his 
hands. Various prayers are read, and the 
affair concludes when the priest in a loud voice 
adjures the evil influence to depart, in the name 
of God the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, 
and the Virgin Mary. 

I have never, however, heard of any well- 
authenticated case testifying to the efficacy of 
this or of any other mode of exorcism. As far 
as I know, once a werwolf always a werv/olf is 
an inviolable rule. 

Apparently women are more desirous of 
becoming werwolves than men, more women 
than men having acquired the property of wer- 
wolfery through their own act. In the case of 
women candidates for this evil property, the 
inspiring motive is almost always one of 
revenge, sometimes on a faithless lover, but 
more often on another woman ; and when once 
women metamorphose thus, their craving for 
human flesh is simply insatiable—in fact, they 


278 


WERWOLVES 


are far more cruel and daring, and much more 
to be dreaded, than male werwolves. The 
following story seems to bear out the truth of 
this assertion :— 

The Case of Ivan of Shiganska 

Shiganska was—for it no longer exists, 
having been obliterated about fifty years ago 
by a blizzard—a small village on the left bank 
of the Petchora, about a hundred miles from 
its mouth. 

Owing chiefly to the character of the adjacent 
country, Shiganska was wanting in every 
beauty and variety that charms the eye. It was 
situated on a stretch of flat land between two 
mountain ranges, i.e.^ the Ural on one side and 
the Taman on the other, and surrounded by a 
wood so thick that it was with the greatest 
difficulty anyone could force a way into it, 
supposing they had been sufficiently fortunate 
to escape sticking fast in the morasses of soft, 
rotten mould, that lie hidden in the least sus¬ 
picious looking places, on its borders. Here 
were to be found lycanthropous blue and white 
flowers, which those desirous of becoming 
werwolves sought from far and wide, some 
even coming from Siberia, and some from away 
down South as far as Astrakan. And the 
woods abounded not only in werwolves, but 
in all sorts of supernatural horrors—phantoms 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


279 


of the dead, i.e. (of murderers and suicides) 
Vice Elementals and Vagrarians, vampires and 
ghouls ; no region in Russia boasted so many, 
and for this reason it was scrupulously avoided 
by all sensible people after sunset. 

Ivan, like most of the male inhabitants of 
Shiganska, lived by the chase : the black fox, 
the sable, the fox with the dark-coloured throat, 
the red fox, white fox, squirrel, ermine, and 
black bear alike fell victims to his gun ; whilst 
in the Petchora, when the weather permitted 
it, he caught, besides many other kinds of fish, 
a goodly proportion of salmon, nelma (a kind 
of salmon trout), bleak, sturgeon, sterlet, tochii, 
muksun, omul, and Salmo Lavaretus. 

It was a good living, that of the chase, albeit 
fraught with grave dangers; and Ivan, thanks 
to his exceptional powers with the rod as well 
as the rifle, was on the high road to prosperity. 

He lived with his mother and two sisters in 
a pretty house about a kos from Shiganska, 
and facing it was a level stretch of reed-grass 
terminating in the hemlock-covered banks of 
the Petchora. A few trees, chiefly birch and 
larch, dotted about the reed-grass afforded a 
delightful shade from the fierce heat of the short 
summer sun; and birds of all sorts, whose 
singing was a source of the keenest delight 
to Ivan and his sisters, made their homes 
in them. 


280 


WERWOLVES 


Unlike any other hunter in Shiganska, Ivan 
was fond of poetry and music; moreover, he 
had a dreamy disposition, and when his day’s 
work was done he was content—nay, more 
than content—to watch the changing colours in 
the sky, or see in the glowing embers of the 
charcoal fire strange scenes and wildly familiar 
faces. 

One morning, in the month of April, Ivan 
set off to the woods, gun in hand, accompanied 
by his old and faithful dog, Dolk, in search 
of big game. He paused every now and then 
to look at the ice on the summits of the distant 
mountains. The sunlight falling on it imparted 
to it many different hues, and made it sparkle 
like flaming jewels. He stopped repeatedly to 
listen to the croaking of the raven, the cawing 
of the crows, and the piping of the bullfinches 
—sounds of which he was never weary, and 
never tired of trying to interpret. 

On this occasion, as usual, it was not until 
long after noon that he began seriously to 
think of looking for his quarry, and it was not 
until he had searched for some time that he at 
length came upon the tracks of a wild reindeer. 
Loosing Dolk, and tightening the buckles of 
his snow-shoes, he set to work to stalk the 
animal, and eventually sighted it browsing on 
a clump of reed-grass that grew on the bank 
of a mountain stream. The chase now beofan 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


281 


in earnest. It was a beautiful animal, and Ivan 
strained every effort to get within shooting 
range by leaping from rock to rock, and 
springing over stream after stream. In this 
manner he had progressed for more than a kos, 
when blood from the feet of the reindeer began 
to be visible on the fresh frozen snow ; from its 
faltering pace the poor creature was evidently 
tired out, and Dolk was drawing closer and 
closer to it. In these circumstances Ivan was 
counting on the likelihood of his soon being 
near enough to fire, when suddenly the joyful 
barking of the dog changed to a prodigious 
howl of agony. With redoubled speed Ivan 
pushed ahead, and, presently, at a distance 
of about two gunshots, he saw two small black 
objects lying on the snow covered with blood. 

They were the remains of Dolk, who, having 
come up with the reindeer and driven it into 
a small brook, was keeping it there until Ivan 
arrived, when a hungry wolf had leaped down 
the side of a rock and, seizing him in his 
powerful jaws, had bitten him in half. The 
wolf had evidently intended to eat Dolk, but, 
catching sight of Ivan, had made off. 

Ivan was inconsolable. Dolk had hunted 
with him as a puppy of six months old, and 
for eight years the dog had never let him know 
a hungry day. Ivan had been offered ten 
reindeer for him, but he would not have parted 


282 


WEKWOLVES 


with him for any number, and without Dolk 
he knew not how to show himself at home, for 
both his mother and sisters were devoted to 
the faithful animal. 

Determined on vengeance, Ivan followed 
the wolfs tracks, which led, by an unfamiliar 
path, to the mouth of a vast and gloomy cavern. 
There he lost sight of them, and he was 
deliberating what to do next, when a loud peal 
of silvery laughter broke on his ears and awoke 
the silent echoes of the grim walls around him. 
Ivan started in open-mouthed astonishment. 
Standing before him was a girl more lovely— 
ten thousand times more lovely—than any 
woman he had hitherto seen. To the magic 
of a beautiful form in woman—the necromancy 
of female grace—there was no more ready and 
willing subject than Ivan ; and here, at last, he 
had found grace personified, incarnate, the 
highest ideal of all his wildest and most 
cherished dreams. His most magnificent 
“ castle ” had never contained a princess 
half as fair as this one. Her figure was 
rather above the medium height, supple and 
slender. Her feet and hands were small, her 
wrists well rounded, her fingers long and white, 
and tipped with pink and glossy almond-shaped 
nails—if anything a trifle too long. But it was 
her face that so attracted Ivan as to almost 
hold him spellbound—the neat and delicately 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


283 


moulded features all in perfect harmony ; the 
daintily cut lips ; the white gleaming teeth ; 
the low forehead crowned with golden curls ; 
the long, thick-lashed, blue eyes that looked 
steadily into his, and seemed to read his 
very soul. 

Moreover, in her blue eyes there was 
bewildering depth ; a sense of coldness that 
was positively benumbing, and which was 
reminiscent of the blue petrifying waters of 
the Ural Lakes ; a magnetism that was 
paralysing, that held in complete obeisance 
both mind and limb, and was comparable to 
nothing so nearly as the hypnotic influence 
of the tiger or snake, but which differed from 
the latter inasmuch as its inspirations were just 
as delightful as those of the tiger and snake 
are harrowing and terrifying. 

She was clad from head to foot in fur— 
white fur—but neither her dress nor her 
presence excited any other thoughts in Ivan 
except those of intense admiration—admiration 
which surged through every pore of his skin. 

“Well!” she demanded, “what brings you 
here, my good man ? There is no game in 
this cave.” 

“Isn’t thereIvan stammered, his eyes 
looking at her adoringly. “All the same I 
would cheerfully forgo all the pleasures of the 
chase to come here.” 




284 


WERWOLVES 


“You are very gallant for a huntsman, sir,” 
the girl replied with a smile; “ but for your 
own sake I must urge you to go away at once. 
I live here with my father—a confirmed recluse 
who detests the sight of human beings ; were 
he to discover me talking to one I should get 
into sad trouble, and with regard to you I 
could not say what might happen.” 

But Ivan came of a race that paid little heed 
to any warning when once their blood was 
fired; consequently, despite the repeated ad¬ 
monitions of his beautiful companion—admoni¬ 
tions which her eyes seemed to contradict—he 
stayed and stayed, whilst—forgetful of mother 
and sisters, home, and even Dolk—he made 
a passionate avowal of his love. The after¬ 
noon quickly passed, and the sun was beginning 
to set, when the girl, whose name he had 
learned was Breda, almost pushed him out 
of the cavern. 

“ If you don’t go now,” she urged, “ I may 
never see you again.” 

“ And would you care ? ” he asked. 

“ Perhaps,” she replied ; “ perhaps, just a 
little—a wee, wee bit. You see, I don’t get the 
opportunity of meeting many people! ” 

He caught her by the hand and kissed it 
passionately; and with the sound of her light, 
intoxicating laughter thrilling through his soul, 
he descended to the bed of the mountain 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 285 

streamlet, and turned his steps blithely towards 
home. 

That was the beginning, but not the end. 
He courted her—he married her and she came 
to live with his mother and sisters, who for his 
sake tried to like her and even pretended that 
they did like her. But in secret they said to 
one another, She has no heart; she is cold 
as an icicle; her lips are thin and cruel. She 
would serve Ivan badly if we were not here to 
check her.'’ 

And Breda certainly had her idiosyncrasies. 
She preferred raw to cooked meat, and would 
not sleep in the same room as her husband. 
She grew very angry when Ivan expostulated, 
saying, ‘‘You promised you would never 
thwart me. If you do not keep your word, I 
shall despise you, scorn you, hate you.” And 
Ivan, who loved his wife beyond anything, 
yielded. 

Some weeks after their marriage, neighbours 
complained of losing cattle and horses. They 
said there was a wolf about, and that its tracks, 
which they had followed, always ended under 
the walls of Ivan’s house. They asked Ivan if 
he had not heard the brute. But he had heard 
nothing, he slept very soundly. Then they 
inquired of Ivan’s sisters and mother, who also 
replied in the negative; but there was hesi¬ 
tation in their voices, and they looked very 





286 


WERWOLVES 


frightened and ashamed. And then people 
began to talk. They looked at Breda curiously, 
and finally they cut her. One night, when 
there was a downfall of snow, and the wind 
howled down the chimneys of Ivan’s house 
and blew the snow, with heavy thumps against 
the window-panes, Ivan, who could not sleep 
for the storm, heard the door of Breda’s room 
open very softly, and light steps steal stealthily 
down the passage. Then there came a half- 
suppressed, half-smothered cry, a groan, and 
all was still. Ivan got out of bed and opened his 
door, but his wife’s voice called to him from 
the darkness and bade him go back. 

“ Do not be alarmed and make a fuss,” she 
said ; “I was ill a moment ago, but am quite 
well again now. Go back to bed at once, or I 
shall be very angry.” And Ivan obeyed her. 

In the morning his eldest sister, Beata, was 
found dead in bed, her throat, breast, and 
stomach slit open, as is the custom with wolves, 
and her flesh all mangled and eaten. 

Breda took no food that day, and Ivan’s 
mother and other sister, Malvina, looked at her 
out of the corner of their eyes and shuddered. 
But Ivan said nothing. A week later the same 
fate befell Malvina. Then Ivan’s mother 
spoke. She told him that he must assuredly 
be under some evil spell, or he would never 
remain idle whilst his sisters’ destroyer was at 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


287 


large, and she adjured him, by all that he held 
holy, not to allow himself a moment s rest till 
he had had ample vengeance for the loss of 
two such valuable lives. 

Roused at last, Ivan, instead of going to bed, 
sat up, gun in hand, and watched. He passed 
many nights thus, and his patience was well 
nigh exhausted when, during one of the vigils, 
he fell asleep, dreaming as usual of the blue 
eyes and golden curls of Breda, whose beauty 
held him just as much enthralled as ever. 
From this slumber he was awakened by loud 
screams for help. Seizing his gun, and taking 
a random aim at a huge white wolf as he went 
(though without stopping to see the effects of 
the shot), he ran to his mother’s bedside. She 
was dead. Her throat and body were slit; but 
she was not eaten. 

Wild with grief and thirsting for revenge, Ivan 
started off in pursuit of the wolf, and discovered, 
in the passage, a track of blood which terminated 
at his wife’s door. Receiving no reply when he 
asked for admittance, he entered the room and 
found Breda lying on the floor, in her night¬ 
dress, the blood streaming from a wound in 
her shoulder. Ivan knelt down and examined 
her. She had been struck by a bullet, and the 
bullet fitted the bore of his gun. 

He knew the truth then—the truth he might 
have known all along, had he not, in his blind 


288 


WERWOLVES 


love, thrust it far from him—and, in the sudden 
alteration of his feeling, he raised his knife to 
kill her. But Breda opened her eyes, and the 
weapon fell from his hand. 

“You know part of my secret now,” she 
whispered, “ but you don’t know everything. 
I am a werwolf, not by inheritance, but of my 
own free will. In order to become one I ate 
the blue flowers in the wood. I did so to be 
avenged on my husband.” 

“ Your husband ! ” Ivan cried ; “ good God ! 
then you were a widow when I met you ? ” 

“ Yes,” Breda said slowly and with apparent 
effort. “ I was forced into my first marriage by 
my all too worldly parents, and my husband ill- 
used and beat me ! ” 

“ The devil! the cold-hearted, cowardly 
devil! ” Ivan ejaculated, “ I would have killed 
him.” 

“ That is what I did,” Breda remarked; “ I 
did kill him, and it was in order to make 
certain of killing him that I became a werwolf.” 

“Did you eat him?” Ivan asked, horribly 
fascinated. 

“ Don’t ask questions,” Breda said, averting 
her eyes, “ and for God’s sake don’t lose any 
more time. As you love me, screen me from 
detection ; hide all traces of to-night’s handi¬ 
work as quickly as possible.” 

As usual, Ivan did as she requested him, and 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


289 


giving out that his mother had died suddenly, 
from heart failure, he had her interred with as 
little publicity as possible. 

Before very long, however, the neighbours 
began to ask such pointed questions, that Ivan 
now lived in a state of chronic suspense. He 
feared every moment that the truth would leak 
out, and that his beautiful young wife would 
receive condign punishment. 

At last, finding such a state of apprehension 
intolerable, he confided in an old man who was 
reputed a sage and metaphysician—one who 
was extremely well versed in all matters apper¬ 
taining to the spiritual world. “ There is only 
one course to pursue,” the old man said, “ you 
must have the evil spirit in her exorcized, and 
you must have it done immediately. Other¬ 
wise, she will continue her depredations, and 
your good neighbours will find her out and kill 
her. They more than half suspect her now, 
and are talking of paying a visit some night, 
when you are snug and safe in bed, to the 
cemetery, to see if the story you told them 
about your mother’s and sisters’ sudden deaths 
is correct.” 

“ What kind of exorcism would you use ? ” 
Ivan inquired nervously. “You would not 
hurt her ? ” 

“ The form of exorcism I should make use 
of would do her no lasting harm,” the old 

u 


290 


WERWOLVES 


man said feelingly ; “ you can rely on me for 
that.” 

“But is exorcism always effectual?” Ivan 
persisted. 

“ When exorcism is ineffectual it is the 
exception, not the rule,” the old man replied, 
“ and there are very few cases of exorcism being 
employed ineffectually upon those who have 
become werwolves through the practice of 
maeic, or the medium of flowers or of water.” 

“ Should my wife refuse to undergo the 
ceremony, what would you advise then? ” Ivan 
asked. 

“ Strategy and force,” the old man said, 
“anything to prevent her continuing in her 
demoniacal ways, and being burned or drowned 
by an infuriated mob.” 

Thus admonished, Ivan, without delay, 
broached the matter to Breda. But she was 
so angry with him for having dared even to 
mention exorcism, that he thought it best to act 
on the advice of the old occultist and to catch 
her unawares. Consequently, one evening, 
when the moon was in the full, and she had just 
changed into wolf form, he stole into her room 
accompanied by the old man and two assistants. 
After a desperate struggle, Ivan and the three 
exorcists overpowered her, and bound her so 
securely that she could not move. 

They then took her out of doors, to a lonely 


IN RUSSIA AND SIBERIA 


291 


spot at the back of the house, and placed her in 
the centre of an equilateral triangle that had 
been carefully marked on the ground, in red 
chalk. At seven or eight feet to the west of 
the triangle they then kindled a wood fire, and 
placed over it a vessel containing a fumigation 
mixture ofhypericum, vinegar, sulphur, cayenne, 
and mountain ash berries. 

The old man then knelt down, and crossing 
himself on his forehead and chest, prayed 
vigorously, until the preparation in the pot 
began to give off strong fumes. He then 
arose, and both he and his assistants took up 
specially prepared switches, cut from a mountain 
ash, and gripping them tightly in their hands, 
approached the recumbent form of the werwolf 
This, however, was more than Ivan could 
stand—he had objected strongly enough to the 
fumigation, which, being nauseous and irri¬ 
tating, had made his wolf-wife gasp and choke ; 
but when it came to flogging her—well, it 
turned him sick and cold. He forgot dis¬ 
cretion, prudence, everything, saving the one 
great fact—monstrous, incredible, abominable— 
that the being he loved, adored, and worshipped 
was about to be beaten with rods ! With a 
shout of wrath he rushed at the trio, and 
snatching their wands from them, laid them so 
soundly about their backs that they all three 
fled from the ground, shrieking with pain and 


292 


WERWOLVES 


terror. Then he knelt by his prostrate wife, 
and cutting the thongs that bound her, set 
her free. She rose on her feet a huge, white 
wolf. Regarding him steadily for a moment 
from out of her gleaming grey eyes, she^swung 
slowly round, and with one more look, more 
human than animal, she darted swiftly away, 
and was speedily lost in the gloom. 


UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, WOKING AND LONDON. 



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